The Miami Heat came into Wednesday’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks needing another win in NBA Cup play. They got it. Miami pulled off a tight 106 to 103 victory and moved to three and one in group play.
Tyler Herro, newly back from injury, carried the offense. He dropped twenty nine points with seven assists and five rebounds. He shot nine of fifteen from the field and looked smooth all night. Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins and Kel’el Ware each scored eleven. Bam Adebayo added seventeen and Jaime Jaquez scored ten.
Even with all that scoring, Miami’s defense was the real difference. The Heat blocked seven shots while the Bucks had only one. They held Milwaukee to one hundred three points, which ties the Bucks’ third lowest total all season.
The win also marked a huge moment for Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. He reached eight hundred career wins. He is now the seventeenth coach in NBA history to hit that mark and only the third to do it all with one team. After the game he joked that he thought the team had clinched a Cup spot when he saw water being dumped on him. He did not even realize the celebration was for his milestone.
Spoelstra is now thirty three wins away from moving into sixteenth place on the all time list. At the pace Miami is playing, he has a real shot at reaching that spot before the season ends. The Heat have now won six straight and sit in third place in the Eastern Conference.
