Heat defenseless in 133-124 loss to post-trade Bulls

CHICAGO — When it came to Tuesday night’s game at the United Center, it could be argued the Chicago Bulls were entitled to a post-trade funk, on the heels of Zach LaVine being shipped to the Sacramento Kings at the start of the week.

For the Miami Heat, the question was whether this became a case of a pre-trade funk, with Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trade deadline approaching and Jimmy Butler still suspended amid the Heat’s search for a trade partner.

Defensively, this hardly was the best of Erik Spoelstra’s team, and so back to .500 it is after a 133-124 loss.

“That’s just a tough one,” Spoelstra said. “Our defense didn’t travel tonight.”

The statistics were there for the Heat, just not the defense.

From Tyler Herro there were 23 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. From Bam Adebayo there were 23 points and eight rebounds. And on it went, 17 points and 12 rebounds from Kel’el Ware, 20 points from Nikola Jovic and 14 points from Jaime Jaquez Jr.

But when you allow .527 shooting, still not enough.

“We were just letting them get easy basket after easy basket,” Adebayo said.

So 124 points . . . and a loss.

“That’s enough to win in this league,” Adebayo said.

Five Degrees of Heat from Tuesday night’s game:

1. Closing time: The Heat led 37-32 after the first quarter and 70-60 at halftime.

“I didn’t feel good about our defense going into the half,” Spoelstra said.

Eventually, what was a 13-point Heat second-quarter lead turned into a deficit in the third quarter. The Heat nonetheless fought back at a 103-94 lead entering the fourth.

Spoelstra then tried to buy time at the start of the fourth quarter with a lineup of Ware, Jovic, Jaquez, Terry Rozier and Alec Burks. That allowed the Bulls to move within 110-94 before Adebayo returned, with Chicago within 111-107 before Herro checked back in.

Eventually the Bulls tied it 114-114 with 6:16 to play, then going up 119-118 with 4:07 left, part of a 7-0 run.

From the Heat, no pushback and an ugly loss.

“Once they jammed up our initial action, we were pretty much stuck,” Spoelstra said.

2. The big show: Ware continued to show the breadth of his game, including a 13-point first quarter that featured 6-of-8 shooting and a conversion on his lone 3-point attempt of the period.

Ware had four alley-oop finishes in the first half.

That came after hours earlier being named NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for January.

Spoelstra said pregame the honor should enforce a commitment to more.

“If we just stay steady to it, I talked to him, this would be another good adjustment for you, dealing with everybody praising you,” Spoelstra said. “It’s a good thing. But then you manage success and have the same type of humility and work ethic that you have when nobody was paying attention to it.”

But for Ware it also was a day of lessons, of how the offense can flow and then suddenly stop.

“It was flowing,” he said. “But we’ve got to bring the energy.”

3. Dual bench boosts: Jovic and Jaquez both scored in double figures in the first half, each in their unique way, Jovic with 11 points, Jaquez with 10.

For Jovic, it was a 3-of-3 first half from beyond the arc, with it a 4-of-4 first half from the line for Jaquez.

Those contributions helped keep the Heat afloat with Duncan Robinson in early foul trouble and with Herro 0 for 4 from beyond the arc in the first half, after shooting 0 for 7 on 3-pointers in Saturday night’s victory over the San Antonio Spurs at the start of this trip.

Still, Jaquez said it wasn’t enough.

“As a collective spirit, we just weren’t there,” he said.

4. Still contributing: Even as he later fell to 0 for 6 on 3-pointers, Herro still found a way to contribute, eventually coming around in his scoring, converting his next three 3-point attempts and fouled on his ensuing 3-point attempt.

By the midpoint of the third quarter, Herro was up to seven assists, more than twice as many as any teammate.

But with Herro 5 of 15 from the field and 3 of 11 from the arc, not even his 10 of 11 foul shooting was enough.

5. One more until deadline: The Heat close out the back-to-back set Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, the third stop on this four-game trip. The Heat enter 5-3 on the second night of back-to-back sets.

While Joel Embiid returned from knee treatment for the 76ers with a triple-double in Philadelphia’s Tuesday night victory over the visiting Dallas Mavericks, coach Nick Nurse said Embiid would be held out on Wednesday night’s second night of the back-to-back for the 76ers.

“We got another tomorrow,” Jaquez said. “That’s the beauty of this game.”

For the Heat, from there comes Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trading deadline and potential closure with Butler.

The trip concludes with Friday night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets.

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