In a game where the Miami Heat held the lead for most of the game, a disastrous fourth-quarter collapse led to a deflating 133-124 loss to the Chicago Bulls Tuesday night at United Center. With this loss, the Heat fell back to .500 and continued their pattern of running in place.
A key decision by Erik Spoelstra led to a fourth quarter collapse.
With the direction of the game heading into a shootout, Erik Spoelstra decided to play Terry Rozier nearly the entire fourth quarter. Rozier made his first shot, knocking down a step back 3-pointer, but the rest of the quarter was a disaster for him. Rozier finished the game with five points on 2-for-12 shooting, and even with his struggles, Spoelstra decided to keep him in the game for reasons I cannot explain.
Many fans including myself were wondering why Duncan Robinson only played 10 minutes the entire game given his hot start where he scored or assisted on Miami’s first 10 points. There is a chance that Robinson ended up reaggravating his hip where it was revealed on the injury report that Robinson has a hip contusion.
Duncan Robinson was on the injury report today with a hip contusion. Wouldn’t be surprised if it flared up on him and that’s why he didn’t play much tonight. https://t.co/sFLGNH9Q8h
So let’s say that Robinson was unable to check back into the game due to injury, almost any option would have been a better choice over Rozier. If Spoelstra wanted to go with an offensive-heavy lineup, Alec Burks could have been an option to play over Rozier. Burks did not have a big scoring outburst, but he was 3-for-7 from 3-point range and could have been relied on more to knock down open shots.
But for me, Haywood Highsmith not closing when the Heat were getting shredded by Chicago’s guards is a decision I do not understand one bit. Highsmith has had clutch defensive plays this year such as the block on Malik Monk in overtime vs the Kings. Miami needed to have some resistance when it came to stopping Chicago’s offense, and keeping in Rozier who is contributing nothing offensively over a proven defender does not make any sense to me.
Spoelstra is one of the best coaches in the NBA, but there have been questions about his rotations this season. It seems as if Spoelstra has decided to go with Nikola Jovic, Kel’el Ware, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro as his closers. But that fifth spot seems to change depending on who is playing well.
Rozier could not buy a basket, and Spoelstra deciding to have faith in him to be a reliable closer ended up burning the team.
