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Tim Bontemps, ESPN
MIAMI — No Jimmy Butler? No problem.
Thanks to the best game so far in the career of rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr., who finished with a career high 31 points to go along with 10 rebounds, Miami escaped with a 119-113 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in a roller coaster of a game missing two of the league’s biggest stars in Butler and Joel Embiid due to injuries.
“Definitely special,” said Jaquez, who became the first rookie to have at least 25 points and 10 rebounds on Christmas Day since Patrick Ewing in 1985. “Great to get a win. Career night, on Christmas … I grew up watching these games. To be able to play and have a career night, it just, I just go back to all the hard work, late nights in the gym, just preparing for moments like this.”
The Heat needed all of it from Jaquez, too, in a game with all sorts of ups and downs. Philadelphia had a stretch where it missed 13 consecutive shots in the first half, was down 14 at halftime and 21 early in the third quarter and Tyrese Maxey had one of the worst games of his career, finishing 4-for-20 after missing 16 of his first 18 shots.
But after Philadelphia erased that entire 21-point lead in the third quarter, it was Jaquez who scored 10 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter to help Miami finally put away the game.
“I don’t think I called one play for him tonight, literally,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I mean, they were in his zone most of the second half. But throughout the rest of the course of the game, I definitely did not call it one play for him. And he did with offensive rebounding, transition, cuts, timely threes, just a lot of plays in between, so you don’t really think that it’s, you know, a 30-point game.”
But it was, as Miami survived a third straight game without Butler, who remains out with a calf strain. Spoelstra did not know if he would be playing when Miami begins a five-game road trip Thursday against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco. He also didn’t know the status of Caleb Martin moving forward, as the forward suffered a sprained ankle during Monday’s win.
They will, however, have Bam Adebayo (26 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists) and Tyler Herro (22 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists), with Adebayo in particular giving the 76ers all sorts of trouble inside without Embiid, who stayed home with a sprained ankle he suffered in Friday’s win over the Toronto Raptors.
But it was Jaquez, who finished 11-for-15 from the field and 8-for-8 from the line in 39 minutes, who led the way for Miami and earned the praise of 76ers coach Nick Nurse, as well.
“Very physical,” Nurse said. “Got to where he wanted to go. Thought he did a lot of damage around the basket. He just kind of, either off rebounds, put backs, cuts, just kind of backing his way in, et cetera.
“He was tough. He made a lot of big buckets … when they needed buckets, he got a lot of big buckets for them.”
And while Philadelphia had big performances from Tobias Harris (27 points on 10-for-18 shooting), Kelly Oubre Jr. (25 points on 9-for-16 shooting) and, quite surprisingly, Mo Bamba off the bench (18 points on 7-for-8 shooting), the 76ers couldn’t get anything going for Maxey.
Arguably the front-runner for Most Improved Player this year, and likely headed for his first All-Star berth, Maxey struggled mightily throughout this one. He had the worst shooting half of his career in the first half, going 0-for-9 from the field, and needed baskets on his two final shots to avoid having the worst shooting performance of his career thus far in a game.
“They did the normal stuff that I see when I’m out there without [Embiid],” Maxey said afterward. “The blitzing, the hard showing, but for the most part, I got some really good looks and some shots that I make I don’t know, four or five times out of 10. So I guess it was just one of those days.”