By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Miami Heat played a huge spoiler to the San Antonio Spurs after dealing them their third consecutive defeat, 128-107, in the ongoing NBA regular season on January 20, 2025.
After trailing by as much as 13 points in the opening quarter, Miami leaned on a momentum-shifting second-quarter run after outscoring the Spurs, 26-11, to return to the driver’s seat heading into the second half.
Thanks to the stellar performance of their rookie, Kel’el Ware, who scored a season-high outing of 25 points built from an efficient 10/19 shooting from the field.
With his three-point shooting off, Ware decided to put his head down midway through the second and relentlessly attacked the San Antonio interior at will.
Ware’s daredevil drives put San Antonio in an early foul trouble in the second period, resulting to a penalty situation with still five minutes remaining in the second.
From that sequence, the Spurs never recovered and received another massive run from the Heat in the third, 46-27, that ballooned their largest lead of the ball game at 27 points.
The backcourt duo of Tyler Herro and Terry Rozier took turns abusing the switches they received in the third, slicing and dicing the San Antonio bigs with their deep offensive bag.
Herro negated Victor Wembanyama in the pick-and-roll and chose to expose Harrison Barnes in the left wing, while Rozier took advantage of every mismatch he had at the top of the key.
San Antonio threw the white towel with still six minutes remaining in the game and could only watch the waxing-hot Miami squad drain 15 total three-pointers in the game.
Duncan Robinson, Miami’s premier shooter who is currently having a roller-coaster season, played one of his best games for the Heat and dropped 21 points derived from five mad three-pointers.
Jimmy Butler, who is now back after receiving suspension from the front office, played 27 minutes and tallied eight markers, seven assists, three rebounds, and two blocks.
On the other hand, the Spurs had a 44-point combined effort from Devin Vassell and Wembanyama, 23 and 21, respectively, but the Heat’s balanced attack made the difference during their inter-conference matchup.
