WASHINGTON – The goal during this season-best five-game Miami Heat winning streak has been about attempting to set the table for something better, even while positioned for no better than a third consecutive trip to the play-in tournament.
In that regard, another mission accomplished in Monday night’s 120-94 victory over the league-worst Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena.
Once again, the leaders led, with Bam Adebayo closing with 28 points and 12 rebounds, and Tyler Herro with 27 points, five assists and five rebounds.
That remains the requisite, particularly with forward Andrew Wiggins still sidelined with a hamstring issue.
But this also was a different path to victory, one not nearly as dependent on 3-point shooting.
This time, there was serviceable play and solid playmaking from Terry Rozier, who finished with 15 points, six assists and five rebounds.
This time, there was Jaime Jaquez Jr. finding 3-point success and also a return of the spark that had been missing during this sophomore slump, closing with 14 points and seven rebounds.
And this time there were even more hustle points (and hustle rebounds, hustle assists) from rookie second-round pick Pelle Larsson, who closed with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists in a second consecutive start.
Put that all together, and the 35 points from Wizards guard Jordan Poole were little more than a nuisance.
So now on to Boston for Wednesday night’s game against the Celtics at TD Garden, a decidedly significant step up on competition.
Five Degrees of Heat from Monday night’s game:
1. Game flow: The Heat led 36-23 after the first period and 58-47 at halftime, after going up 19 in the second period.
From there, the Heat built a 22-point lead midway through the third period, before taking a 92-75 advantage into the fourth.
Along the way, Heat center Kel’el Ware was forced to the bench with his fourth foul 55 seconds into the second half.
With the Heat then pushing the lead back into the 20s, Adebayo was able to sit out the entire final period, with Herro joining him on the bench midway through the fourth.
With the victory, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra tied Gene Shue (784) for 17th place on the NBA’s all-time regular-season coaching victory list.
2. From the start: Adebayo was up to 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting, six rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot by the end of the first period.
That tied his highest-scoring quarter of the season, also with 16 points in the fourth quarter on Nov. 15 against the Indiana Pacers.
No sooner did Adebayo return for his second-period stint then he took a Larsson feed for an alley-oop dunk.
Adebayo was up to 20 points, seven rebounds by halftime.
He closed 11 of 19 from the field, 2 of 5 on 3-pointers.
3. Not so much: Having entered torrid with their 3-point shooting the previous four games of the winning streak, the Heat this time stood 3 of 17 from beyond the arc in the first half, with the only conversions over the first two periods coming from Adebayo, Jaquez and Alec Burks.
