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Heat stops cold-shooting Grizzlies 92-84
Dwyane Wade narrowly missed a triple-double and Shaquille O'Neal scored 11 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, awakening just in time to help lift the Miami Heat to an 92-84 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night.
O'Neal made four of his five shot attempts and added two assists in the final 12 minutes, a stark difference from the middle two quarters when the Grizzlies held him scoreless and he missed the only three shots he tried.
Wade had 26 points, nine assists and nine rebounds — coming up just short in a bid for what would have been the fifth triple-double in Heat history and just the second in the last 10 seasons. He and O'Neal combined for 19 of Miami's 23 fourth-quarter points.
Lorenzen Wright had 14 of his 18 points in the second half for Memphis, which lost for the second time since former Heat television analyst Mike Fratello took over as coach five games ago. The Grizzlies held a 22-8 edge in offensive rebounding, but couldn't overcome 35.9 percent shooting.
Damon Jones had 15 points, all on 3-pointers, for the Heat, who improved to 13-0 when leading entering the fourth quarter.
Mike Miller had 13 points and Pau Gasol — who'd averaged 23.5 points in his previous four games — had 12 for Memphis. Gasol and Wright each had 11 rebounds, and Earl Watson had 12 assists for the Grizzlies.
O'Neal hit his first three shots over the game's opening nine minutes, then got only three more shots — all misses — over the next 29 minutes.
He ended the drought by scoring on consecutive trips in the fourth, first on an emphatic one-handed dunk and next on a powerful layin, to push the Heat's lead to 75-70. A quick pass by O'Neal set Wade up for a layup with 5:59 left, giving Miami a 78-72 edge, and his three-point play with 4:26 remaining put the Heat up 83-74.
Watson's reverse layup with 1:05 left drew Memphis to 87-82, but he missed a 3-pointer with 38 seconds left, O'Neal corralled the long rebound and the Heat survived.
Memphis trailed only 47-45 at halftime, staying close mainly because it made five of its first six tries from 3-point range and held a 15-4 edge in offensive rebounding.
The Grizzlies missed eight of nine shots over a 4:09 stretch of the opening quarter, yet Miami only outscored Memphis 9-3 in that span. And in the second quarter, Memphis had a 1-for-13 spell, allowing the Heat to take off on a 14-2 run and build a 45-35 lead on Wade's layup with 3:15 remaining.
But Memphis closed the half on a 10-2 spurt and went into the break down by just a basket, even after allowing Miami to hit 58.6 percent of its shots in the half — compared to the Grizzlies' 33.3 percent effort. |
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