Heat 123-100 Suns Hiro 33 points Dunro 27 points
The two cores were absent, away to challenge the league's first Sun, but the Heat took only two quarters to completely shake off the opponent, and finally won the 12th victory in the last 15 games, 25 wins and 15 losses, and rose to the third place in the East.
In this game, Adebayor continued to miss due to a thumb injury, Butler, who had just returned, also did not play due to a sprained ankle, and the opposite Side of Theandre Ayton, who had been resting for 6 consecutive games because of the trigger of the health and safety agreement, made people dare not be too optimistic about the fate of the away team.
But the final result was a big surprise, and the Heat once again staged a good play of "lower gram" with the ferocious firepower of "bench splash". In this game, Taylor Hiero shot 12 of 20 (3 of 4 from three- and Duncan Robinson shot 9-of-17 (8-of-16 from three-point range), and the two top scorers combined to score 60 points, making them tough as the sun and unable to cope.
In fact, as early as December 2019, when Hiro's career had only begun less than two months ago, someone compared him to another shooter on the team's top-star combination with the Warriors' superstar combination.
ESPN celebrity Steven A-Smith talked about the hot-touch Hiero and Dunroe during a "First Take" show, giving the following comment:
"Now let me tell you about those two white lads, Hiro and Robinson. Let me tell you what's going on right now, they're ready to launch anytime, anywhere, and they can throw the ball out of the parking lot and into the basket. Who have we made this assessment of before? There is only one pair of combinations. ”
Smith's partner, Max Kellerman, understood and immediately said, "Stephen and Clay." ”
At the time of Smith's comment, Hiro was just an NBA rookie, but he was already averaging two three-pointers per game with 37.5 percent shooting. His teammates were even more exaggerated, averaging 3.1 three-pointers per game in the first 26 games of the season, shooting 44 percent from the field! Such a pair of projection combinations is indeed easy to think of "splash brothers".
Inheriting the tradition of a 13-draw shooting guard, Hiro's rookie season has shown confidence that he can shoot fearlessly and decisively at any time against any opponent, and although he can control the ability to break through, the three-point shot is also an important killing weapon in his arsenal.
And Dunro, the shooter who regrettably lost the selection after four years of study at the University of Michigan, after being recognized by the Heat, also officially took the position in the second year of his career, with a huge long-range deterrent, becoming the most important pawn in the team responsible for opening up the field space.
The Heat transformed from a lottery team to a Finals team in 2020, with much of the credit going to Butler and Adebayor all-stars. In fact, the role played by the combination of shooters Hiro and Dunro is also indispensable.
Before last year's trade deadline, the Heat were secretly trying to make various trade attempts in order to further impact the championship, and Hiro and Dunro were naturally names that the opposing team often mentioned during the negotiation process. But Pat Riley rejected all offers that included "Shuangluo".
Riley later explained this himself: "I think there's a bottom line for any trade, and we can't give up those two players because they can really be very good. ”
In his second NBA season, Hiro averaged 15.1 points, five rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, but because his performance in the 2020 Finals was too impressive, people were still not very satisfied with the pace of improvement. So last summer, the first full off-season of his career, Hiro buried his head in hard work, determined to prove himself to be a young star of the same level as Doncic, Trae Young and Morant.
Since the start of the season, Hiro has played a total of 34 games, including 24 as a substitute, averaging 20.7 points per game, 4.4 points ahead of Kelly Oubre, the second place on the bench scoring list, and basically locked in the sixth man of the year in advance. In those 24 games as a substitute, Hiro averaged 6.5 three-point shots per game, hitting 2.8 goals, shooting 43.3%!
In contrast, Dunroe's performance has regressed from last season after signing a five-year, $90 million contract. Counting today's game, he averaged just 12 points per game this season, shooting 35.9 percent from three-point range, down nearly 5 percentage points from last season.
It's worth noting that as the season progresses, Dunro's feel is picking up: he averaged 10.5 points per game in October, shooting 21.1 percent from three-point range, becoming 11 points per game in November, shooting 33.1 percent from three-point range, and by December, his three-point shooting percentage had risen to 37.6 percent and 12.6 points per game.
Entering 2022, Dunro missed three consecutive games for triggering a health and safety agreement, and after his comeback, he was placed as a substitute. In his last game against the Blazers, he played less than 17 minutes and contributed 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from beyond the three-point line. Facing the Suns today, he scored 6 three-pointers in the first half and scored 18 points alone. It was his long-range shot 6.4 seconds before halftime that stretched the field gap to more than 20 points (71-50)!
As league leaders, the Suns still showed their resilience even as they fell behind by a wide margin. As the fourth quarter began, Paul and Booker teamed up to create a 9-2 run back that narrowed the gap to 13 points.
At the critical moment, the Heat's "bench splash" shot again. Back from a timeout, Dunro hit two consecutive three-pointers from the same position at a 45-degree angle on the right, and Hiro made a sharp stop and an empty layup, and the two men joined forces to play a decisive 11-2 offensive attack, killing the game.
In the end, Dunro's 27 points set a new season record, and Hiro's 33 points were also a new personal season high. Even if Butler and Adebayor were on the floor, in terms of offensive firepower, that was no more.
In an interview after the game, Heat coach Eric Spoolstra said that Dunro is a player at the starting level, and the reason why he is on the bench is only because he has just returned and there are playing time limits. It seems that the combination of him and Hiro, the splash brothers on the bench, will not last long.
But regardless of the starter or the bench, the Heat have both of these two big shooters, absolute happiness. Butler has missed 17 games this season, and Adebayor has only played 18, so the Heat still rank in the top three in the East.
When Butler and Adebayor return, can the heat of the whole staff's health meet the Warriors in the Division Finals, let the two pairs of "Splash" meet head-on, and stage a wonderful long-range shooting competition?