The Miami Heat defeated the Houston Rockets 120-113 on Monday night behind the 28 points scored by Tyler Herro and the 22 points and 12 rebounds that Bam Adebayo contributed.
Kevin Love led Miami with 15 points, while the Heat’s Duncan Robinson and Jaime Jaquez Jr. both had 14. Josh Richardson led Miami with 12 in the end. Ten of Adebayo’s points came in the fourth quarter.
With 32 points, Fred VanVleet led all scorers for the Rockets, who began a six-game road trip. For Houston, who received 11 points apiece from Jalen Green and Cam Whitmore, Alperen Sengun finished with 22 points and 11 rebounds. For the seventh straight game, Dillon Brooks (right oblique strain) was out for Houston.
Due to Jimmy Butler’s ongoing recovery from a sprained right toe joint, the Heat have been without him for eight of the previous nine games; Miami has improved to 6-2 during those eight absences. After Kyle Lowry looked to hurt his left hand or wrist blocking a layup attempt by VanVleet, his former Toronto teammate and backcourt partner on the Raptors’ 2019 NBA title squad, the Heat lost Lowry in the third quarter.
Compared to where the Rockets stood at this stage in the previous three seasons, Houston is 18-17 through 35 games. Before finishing with final season totals of 17, 20, and 22 victories in those seasons, they were 11-24 in 2020–21 and 10–25 in both 2021–22 and 2022–23.
I’m not shocked or pleased, to put it nicely, said Rockets coach Ime Udoka. “They were in on Day 1 and you know you have the right players there when you see the competitive side and mindset. We had the opportunity to win five or six of the games.
The scoreboard showed no such disparity, even though the Heat led for 20:48 of the first half and the Rockets led for just 1:26 of those twenty-four minutes. The final 1:27 of the half saw Houston outscore Miami 8-0, and the teams went into halftime locked 59-59.
For both sides, it was just their second halftime draw of the year.
But in the second half, Miami never fell behind. With 4:09 remaining in the third quarter, Herro drained a 3-pointer to give the Heat an 85-75 lead, their first double-digit lead of the game. In the fourth quarter, the margin grew to 15 points.
