The Heat score 144 and win by 27. The Heat are 3-1 and unleashed an offense that is surprising the NBA. Norman Powell was out tonight and Pelle Larsson scored 17 points in his place. The Charlotte Hornets are the NBA’s best offense but not anymore.
Key sequence
Charlotte was trailing by 14 at the half (63-76) but they fought back to close the score to 74-80. They kept the deficit at six until Bam Adebayo scored four points in a row. Then Davion Mitchell and Jaime Jaquez scored to open up the deficit to 13. During this time, Charlotte missed three shots and didn’t score for two minutes.
Charlotte missed four more shots and the Heat extended the lead to 19. Bam Adebayo cooked in the second half scoring 18 points to finish with 28. He scored 11 points during the lead push. Bam tends to “take the lead” when given the main scoring responsibility as when he had a big stretch of games last season.
LaMelo Ball temper tantrum
LaMelo Ball is a gifted basketball player. Much better than his brother Lonzo and his father. He finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. He only took five shots in the second half after going five for nine in the first half.
He had a tantrum in the first half where he scored on a layup but then yelled out to the referees, “And 1?” He looked around and then started to jog up court slowly. The Heat scored on what looked like a fast break to Bam Adebayo (it was just bad defense by Charlotte) and then Charlotte coach, Charles Lee called a timeout. As Ball walked back to the bench, Lee got up in his face and was upset at Ball’s focus.
