Saturday night the 5-17 Sacramento Kings played the 14-9 Miami HEAT, in Miami. The Heat had lost 2 ion a row & 3 of the last 4 while the Kings lost the last 4 in a row & the last 12 of 14 games. The HEAT were without Tyler Herro, Davion Mitchell & Pelle Larsson. Sacramento came into this game giving up the most points in the paint, in the league. Miami is hoping to bounce back & get a win even though they were shorthanded. 

Sacramento came out attacking the HEAT in transition & in the half court, pacing the game to start.  

Zach Lavine couldn’t miss & caught on fire with (18) 1Q points.  The HEAT offense struggled  without Davion Mitchell running PG. Davion missing gave 2 way Gaurd Jahmir Young minutes in a first quarter which has been seldom for Young this season.

HEAT 3 pt shooting outside Simone Fontecchio was garbage 3/12 in 1Q. The Kings shot 57% & Miami shot 44 % thru the end of the 1Q.

Kings led 34 to 31 as the Miami offense was struggling without Herro, Mitchell & Larsson.

In the 2Q, The Kings were beating Miami down the floor, getting out on the fastbreak & scoring too easy on 11-1 run. Norm Powell went on his own mini run hitting a few 3s & doing what he does best, hitting the 3 & drawing the foul. The league lead for three-shot fouls is James Harden at 24. Norm Powell is up to 15. Nobody else has more than 10.

Miami was losing out on 50/50 balls in the air & on the ground. That allowed Zach LaVine to have  24 points on 11 shots: mostly jumpers was one thing, but Kings were also 12-of-14 at the rim while Heat had only taken five shots there thru the middle of the second quarter.

The shorthanded HEAT looked gassed as they trailed the 5-17 Kings 72-55 at half. Zach LaVine already had 29 for Sacramento. The Kings attacked the Miami HEAT in transition, hurting them on 20-5 run to close 2Q. 

Considering Sacramento had very little ball movement on most of his makes, Zach LaVine  put on one of the more impressive one-half shooting displays we all have seen in awhile.

But for Miami, this had a pickup-game quality not previously associated with their warp-speed style. They need to do better job with defensive balance. The Heat were a step behind & not playing good defense at all! Precious Achiuwa outplayed Bam Adebayo, Kel'el Ware and Nikola Jovic in the first half.

In the 3Q the heat went small to try & play faster. Kel’el Ware didn’t start the second half, instead Jaquez jr did.

Andrew Wiggins came out aggressively on offense to start the 3Q but there was no answers from the HEAT for Levine who was absolutely lighting it up. The Heat was down by 21 midway thru the turd quarter & went down by as many as 27 points in 3Q alone.

This wasn’t a competitive game as the Kings led 101 to 78 through three quarters. There was not much to see, with the Heat headed to fourth loss in five games.

The 5-17 Sacramento had a big night in Miami.

Miami made it closer than what it was with a wimpy little late run, but it was definitely not enough. 

You can ascribe various reasons - back-to-back, Mitchell out, LaVine scorching - but for the first time this season, the Heat did not look like the Heat as we have come to know them.

What that ultimately means, time will tell.

Coup’s Takeaways:

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