Heat falls to 3-5 with loss to Nuggets, as Butler exits early. Takeaways from rough night in Denver

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 135-122 loss to the Denver Nuggets (6-3) on Friday night at Ball Arena to fall to 0-2 on its six-game trip. The Heat continues the trip on Sunday against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center:

The Heat’s shaky start to the season continued with a rough night in Denver.

The night began with Heat star Jimmy Butler exiting the game midway through the first quarter after spraining his right ankle.

The night ended with the Heat’s third straight loss, falling to 3-5 this season.

The Heat never led on Friday, falling behind by as many as 26 points.

“We have to be a lot better,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said following the loss.

The Nuggets, even without starting forward Aaron Gordon, dominated the Heat’s defense. Denver totaled 135 points on 61.7 percent shooting from the field and 18-of-35 (51.4 percent) shooting from three-point range.

As usual, the Nuggets’ excellent offensive display was led by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, who recorded his fifth triple-double of the season. Jokic finished Friday’s win over the Heat with 30 points on 11-of-13 shooting from the field, 11 rebounds, 14 assists and two steals.

Jamal Murray contributed 28 points, four rebounds and six assists for the Nuggets.

But despite trailing by double digits for most of the night, the Heat kept fighting and made a late run with its own hot shooting.

The Heat, which shot a scorching 20 of 43 (46.5 percent) from three-point range in the loss, made a late push after falling behind by 19 points with 7:45 left in the fourth quarter.

Miami used an 18-6 spurt to cut the deficit to just seven points with 3:18 to play. That’s the closest the Heat would get, as the Nuggets closed the door on the Heat by responding with six unanswered points to extend their lead back up to 13 with 1:56 on the clock.

The Heat’s 20 made threes led to its best single-game offensive rating of the young season on Friday. The problem is the Heat also posted its worst single-game defensive rating of the season.

With Butler sidelined for most of the game, guard Tyler Herro again carried the Heat’s offense with 24 points on 10-of-21 shooting from the field and 4-of-10 shooting on threes, seven rebounds and 11 assists to just one turnover. The 11 assists tied Herro’s regular-season career-high.

“I just, honestly, want to win at this point,” Herro said when told he matched his regular-season career-high in assists. “I just want to win. I want to win.”

Heat center Bam Adebayo added 20 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field, 1-of-5 shooting on threes and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds, four assists and two steals. He’s shooting just 39.7 percent from the field this season after shooting better than 50 percent from the field in each of his first seven NBA seasons.

The Heat has now started the season with an 0-4 record against teams that made the playoffs last season. The Heat’s only wins so far this season have all come against teams that didn’t quality for the playoffs last season — the Charlotte Hornets, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.

If an early-season three-game losing skid wasn’t bad enough, the Heat now faces the possibility having to play without Butler.

Butler turned his right ankle early in the game while trying to dribble into the paint and then coming to an abrupt stop near the foul line. He immediately fell to the court and winced in pain.

Butler remained in the game for a few possessions, albeit limping around, before being subbed out with 5:16 left in the first quarter. He walked straight to the locker room and missed the rest of the game because of his sprained right ankle.

Butler recorded two points, one rebound and two assists in seven minutes before leaving Friday’s game.

Whether Butler will be forced to miss more time because of his ankle injury remains to be seen, with the Heat’s next game coming Sunday against the Timberwolves. He missed two games last season because of a sprained right ankle.

“We don’t know at this point,” Spoelstra said when asked about Butler’s status following Friday’s loss. “It’s always you never know until you get to the next day. Fly, get to Minnesota, and we’ll probably have a better idea.”

Butler, 35, entered this season hoping to be available for more games after missing 20 or more regular-season games in three of the last four seasons. Heat president Pat Riley also challenged Butler this past offseason to be available for more games.

Butler has played in each of the Heat’s first eight games this regular season, but his status for Sunday’s game against the Timberwolves and possibly beyond is now in doubt.

The Heat did not make a change to its starting lineup, keeping forward Nikola Jovic in the starting group against the Nuggets. But Jovic again wasn’t on the court to begin the second half.

The Heat opened Friday’s contest with a lineup of Terry Rozier, Herro, Butler, Jovic and Adebayo. The Heat has opened its first eight games of the season with this group.

But there were some questions whether the Heat would make a change to its starting lineup for Friday’s game after making a switch midway through Wednesday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns. The Heat played forward Haywood Highsmith in Jovic’s spot to begin Wednesday’s second half, and Jovic did not re-enter that game after playing the first 5:16 of the opening period.

On Friday against the Nuggets, Jovic was again in the Heat’s starting lineup — the same starting unit that was outscored by 16.6 points per 100 possessions in 85 minutes together through the first seven games of the season. Among the 23 lineups around the NBA that entered Friday with at least 50 or minutes played together, the Heat’s starting unit had the second-worst net rating.

Those numbers continued to trend in the wrong direction on Friday, as the Nuggets opened the game on a 24-14 run against the Heat’s starters before Miami made its first substitution of the night with 5:16 left in the first quarter.

That was the Heat starting group’s only stint of the game before Butler exited the contest midway through the first quarter.

Jovic then began the second half on the bench Friday for the second straight game.

“He knows the deal,” Spoelstra said when asked about again sitting Jovic to begin the second half. “Look, I’m not going to change the standards. He knows what the deal is. It has to be a level of energy and effort, make an impact. It’s not just him. That’s an easy target. Look the game gets in a double-digit game, you’re grasping for whatever. And at that point, I have to make decisions. If something is not working, I’m paid to make decisions and go to something else.”

The Heat opened the third quarter in Denver with a lineup of Rozier, Herro, Pelle Larsson, Highsmith and Adebayo. Highsmith began the second half on the court in place of Jovic for the second consecutive game and Larsson started the second half in place of the injured Butler.

Jovic finished Friday’s loss with 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 shooting on threes, four rebounds, two assists and three steals in 20 minutes. Most of that production came in the second half, considering Jovic played the first 6:44 of the game and spent the rest of the first half on the bench.

“We were playing catch up basically the entire time, so I’m trying to figure out anything, combination wise, scheme wise, anything to try to change the tide of the game,” Spoelstra said after tweaking the rotation for the second straight game. “And for the most part, we were able to get things back, we got it back to six a couple of times in the second quarter, but we were playing uphill the majority of the game.”

The Heat’s two picks from the 2024 draft again played.

Center Kel’el Ware, who the Heat selected with the 15th overall pick in the first round of this year’s draft, played as the first big man off the bench Friday for the second straight game. Prior to this two-game stretch, Ware’s only two appearances during the Heat’s first six games of the season came late in lopsided results.

But after Ware picked up two quick fouls while struggling to defend Jokic, he was limited to just two first-half minutes on Friday. Ware never re-entered the game.

Veteran center Thomas Bryant played as the Heat’s backup center the rest of the night.

Larsson, who the Heat took with the 44th overall pick in the second round of this year’s draft, logged double-digit minutes off the bench Friday for the fourth straight game. He played just six minutes thrugh the Heat’s first four games this season prior to this four-game span of extended playing time.

Larsson recorded five points, two rebounds and two assists in 14 minutes against the Nuggets.

The Heat’s bench rotation on Friday included Ware, Larsson, Bryant, Highsmith, Duncan Robinson and Josh Richardson.

Robinson was a bright spot for the Heat in the loss, scoring 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point range.

Richardson was another bright spot, closing the loss with 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting on threes, two rebounds and three assists in 21 minutes in his third appearance of the season since returning from injury. During Richardson’s first two games of the season, he went scoreless and shot 0 of 8 from the field.

The only available Heat players who did not enter the game were Dru Smith and Alec Burks. Smith was inactive for the contest.

Along with losing Butler early in the contest, the Heat entered Friday’s game without Jaime Jaquez Jr. (return to competition reconditioning), Kevin Love (return to competition reconditioning), Josh Christopher (G League) and Keshad Johnson (G League).

The Heat continues to struggle in Denver. How bad is it? The Heat’s last regular-season win in Denver was eight years ago.

The Heat has now dropped eight straight regular-season games to the Nuggets in Denver. The last regular-season game that the Heat won in Denver came on Nov. 30, 2016, when Hassan Whiteside totaled 25 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Heat to a 106-98 victory over the Nuggets.

But the Heat’s issues against the Nuggets extend beyond games in Denver. The Heat has now lost nine straight matchups against the Nuggets, regardless of whether they’ve been played in Miami or Denver.

When including the teams’ 2023 NBA Finals series that the Nuggets won 4-1, Denver has won 13 of its last 14 games against Miami.

Next up for the Heat is a trip to another city that it has struggled in — Minneapolis. The Heat enters Sunday’s matchup against the Timberwolves at Target Center with six straight losses in Minneapolis. The last time that the Heat defeated the Timberwolves at Target Center came on Nov. 24, 2017.