Heat wastes big night from Jimmy Butler in overtime loss to Pistons. Takeaways and details

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 125-124 overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons (11-16) on Monday night at Little Caesars Arena. The Heat (13-11) now returns home for another three-day break before hosting the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday:

Just when it appeared that the Heat was generating some momentum after a slow start to the season, Monday’s loss happened. It was a rough one, too.

The Heat entered riding a season-long four-game winning streak and the Pistons entered with eight losses in their last 11 games.

But it was the Pistons that came away with the win Monday, surviving a wild finish to come away with the overtime victory.

First, the Pistons led by 19 points with 8:39 left in the fourth quarter. But the Heat closed the fourth quarter on a huge 26-7 run to send the game to overtime.

The run to end regulation was capped off by a game-saving shot from Tyler Herro, who caught a pitch pass from Jimmy Butler and hit a game-tying three-pointer with 5.2 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

The back-and-forth swings continued in overtime, as the Heat scored the first eight points of the extra period to take an eight-point lead with 2:14 left in overtime.

That’s when the Pistons put together a comeback of their own, as Tim Hardaway Jr. hit three straight threes to spark a 9-0 run and put Detroit ahead by one point with 1:10 remaining in overtime.

Butler then made a layup to give the Heat a one-point advantage with 44.3 seconds left in the extra period. But that lead didn’t last long, as Cade Cunningham scored on a six-foot jumper to put the Pistons back ahead by one point on the next possession.

After Herro missed a three-pointer with 23.9 seconds left in overtime, Pistons center Jalen Duren grabbed the defensive rebound.

With the Heat still having a foul to give, Duncan Robinson committed a foul to preserve the clock.

But on the ensuing side out-of-bounds play, the Heat didn’t need to commit another foul to send the Pistons to the free-throw line and prolong the game. Instead, the Pistons committed a bad turnover and the Heat regained possession trailing by one point and 9.4 seconds left in overtime.

After the Heat called a timeout to draw up a play, Butler missed a layup and before grabbing the offensive rebound and getting fouled with 6.4 seconds on the clock.

With the foul not called on the shot, the Heat was forced to run another side out-of-bounds play. However, Herro missed a 30-foot three-point attempt as the final buzzer sounded on the Heat’s hopes of escaping with the victory.

“You live with that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of going for the three-pointer instead of a shot closer to the basket in a one-point game. “Tyler made a bunch of big shots going down the stretch. It’s always tough to get a wide open look on a side out-of-bounds. We were fortunate to get a couple and that one looked like it had a chance.”

What does Butler think about the Heat’s decision to go for a three-pointer in that late-game situation when facing a one-point deficit?

“None of that matters if the shot goes in,” Butler said. “Then we’re talking about a great play. That’s just basketball as a whole. There are so many things we could have done better up to that point. I hate to say it, but you learn from a loss.”

It was an up-and-down night for Herro, who totaled just 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the field and 1-of-7 shooting from three-point range through the first three quarters on Monday before coming alive to score 13 fourth-quarter points while helping send the game to overtime. He did not score in overtime.

Herro ended the night with 23 points on 9-of-25 shooting from the field and 4-of-17 shooting on threes, four rebounds and one assist. The 25 field-goal attempts are tied for the fourth-most he has ever put up in an NBA game and the 17 three-point attempts are tied for the most he has ever taken in an NBA game.

“Just to be able to put ourselves in a position to win at the end was a good feeling,” Herro said. “Obviously, not being able to come through at the end and make that last shot, not the best feeling. But you take the good with the bad.”

The Pistons, which entered with the NBA’s 16th-ranked team three-point percentage for this season at 35.6 percent, shot 20 of 40 (50 percent) from three-point range in the win.

The Pistons’ hot shooting began early, making 10 of their first 13 three-point attempts to pull ahead by 15 points with 6:30 left in the first half.

“That’s what happens when they get four or five easy buckets to start the game,” Herro said, “and it’s all kind of an avalanche from there.”

But the Heat was able to cut into that deficit, closing the first half on a 22-11 run behind 14 second-quarter points from Butler.

The Pistons then scored the first nine points of the second half to build a 13-point advantage over the first 2:10 of the third quarter.

With the Pistons continuing to make a high percentage of their threes to begin the second half, their lead grew to as large as 19 points multiple times before the wild finish.

The Pistons won despite committing 22 turnovers in large part because of their big 60-36 edge from behind the three-point line. The Heat shot just 12 of 43 (27.9 percent) from three-point range in the loss.

Cunningham recorded a triple-double for the Pistons on Monday with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 18 assists.

Malik Beasley added 28 points on 7-of-13 shooting from three-point range for the Pistons.

“The lesson would be not to get down 19 and play with that kind of desperation throughout the course of the game,” Spoelstra said after the Heat fell short of completing the comeback.

Not only were the Pistons struggling before Monday’s game, but they were also missing key players against the Heat. Miami couldn’t take advantage.

The Pistons began the game without two starters, as Tobias Harris (right thumb sprain) and Jaden Ivey (left knee pain) were unavailable.

Then Pistons backup center Isaiah Stewart exited the game with 9:10 left in the second quarter and did not return because of a hyperextended left knee.

Meanwhile, the Heat was without Josh Christopher (G League), Nikola Jovic (left ankle sprain), Pelle Larsson (right ankle sprain) and Josh Richardson (right heel inflammation) against the Pistons.

Monday was the continuation of a fortunate trend for the Heat, which has earned a few recent wins over teams missing key players.

The Heat defeated the Phoenix Suns on Dec. 7, with the Suns missing Kevin Durant because of a sprained ankle.

The Heat also earned a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 8, with Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley missing the second half of that contest after spraining his ankle.

The Heat also was victorious against the Toronto Raptors on Thursday, with the Raptors missing Scottie Barnes because of a sprained ankle.

But the Heat didn’t take advantage of the Pistons’ short-handed roster on Monday.

“We let another one slip away,” said Heat center Bam Adebayo, who finished the loss with 15 points, eight rebounds and three assists. “It’s one of those where you feel the momentum shift and we felt like it was going in the right direction. Then they made a couple shots and got a couple stops, and it was ballgame.”

The Heat wasted an excellent Butler performance in the loss.

Butler was dominant in the overtime defeat, finishing with 35 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists, four steals and one block in 44 minutes for his first triple-double of the season and the 20th triple-double of his NBA career (including the playoffs). It’s also just the fifth triple-double in Butler’s NBA career that he has scored more than 30 points in.

In addition, the 19 rebounds represented a new career-high for the 35-year-old Butler.

This comes with Butler at the center of trade speculation in recent days, as he can become a free agent this upcoming offseason with a $52.4 million player option in his contract for next season.

Usually when Butler is this dominant, the Heat wins. But that didn’t hold true on Monday.

The Heat fell to 4-2 this season when Butler scores more than 25 points in a game and 7-3 this season when Butler posts a usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) over 20 percent.

The Heat’s starting lineup has been dominant since it began opening games last month. But this group only played limited minutes and was bad on Monday.

The Heat went with the starting lineup of Herro, Duncan Robinson, Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo on Monday for the 11th time in the last 12 games. The only time that the Heat didn’t use this starting lineup during this stretch came when Butler missed its Dec. 2 loss to the Boston Celtics because of knee soreness.

Since becoming the Heat’s starting group, this lineup has been among the NBA’s best.

Among the 11 NBA lineups that entered Monday with at least 100 minutes logged together since the Heat first used this starting group on Nov. 18, the Herro-Robinson-Butler-Highsmith-Adebayo combination has posted the second-best net rating (outscoring opponents by 16.4 points per 100 possessions in 130 minutes).

But the Heat didn’t lean on this starting group for long to begin Monday’s game, as Highsmith was subbed out just 2:47 into the contest in favor of Dru Smith.

The Heat also turned away from its starting lineup early in the second half, subbing out Robinson for Smith just 2:10 into the third quarter.

The Heat used its starting lineup for just five minutes on Monday, with the Pistons outscoring that group by 10 points during that limited time.

With Smith entering early in each half, he again played extended minutes off the Heat’s bench.

After logging a career-high 34 minutes in Thursday’s home win over the Toronto Raptors, Smith played 31 minutes on Monday before fouling out with 11.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter. He finished the loss with seven points, two assists and six steals.

It appeared that Smith was on his way to playing the entire fourth quarter for the fourth straight game and possibly the entire overtime period before he fouled out late in regulation.

“I mean, if Dru didn’t get the sixth foul, that might have looked different,” Spoelstra said after Monday’s loss. “He just does a bunch of winning things. I don’t have time or the energy to try to explain all of them right now.

“That was big, his fifth and sixth fouls. That last one, I thought he had a clean swipe on it. He just does a lot of stabilizing things. He had some really good defensive possessions on Cunningham going down the stretch.”

Before playing in each of the Heat’s last six games, Smith appeared in just five of the team’s first 18 games this season.

Smith is currently on a two-way contract. But with two open spots on the Heat’s roster following Sunday’s trade of Thomas Bryant, Smith could soon be promoted to a standard deal to fill one of those openings based on the important role he’s now playing for Miami.

The Heat went with a bench rotation of Smith, Kevin Love, Terry Rozier and Jaime Jaquez Jr. against the Pistons.

The only available Heat players who did not get into Monday’s game were Alec Burks, Keshad Johnson and Kel’el Ware.