Putting Kyle Lowry’s ‘phenomenal’ triple-double, 50-plus minute night for Heat into perspective

With a long injury report that included more than half of the Miami Heat’s roster, starting point guard Kyle Lowry knew he would be relied on to provide more in Friday night’s matchup against the Washington Wizards. He made sure the Heat’s coaching staff knew he was up for the challenge.

“Kyle, when he got off the bus and walked by the coach’s office before the game, he ducked his head in and said, ‘I can go 48 if you need me to,’” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

Takeaways: Injury-depleted Heat seven-man roster comes up short in overtime loss to Wizards

Lowry actually was needed for more than 48 minutes with the Heat having just seven available players amid injury issues that kept nine players out, including its top three scorers in Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro. The 36-year-old Lowry, who is in his 17th NBA season, logged 51 minutes in the injury-depleted Heat’s 107-106 overtime loss to the Wizards on Friday at Capital One Arena.

It marked the third-most minutes that Lowry has played in a game during his NBA career, including the playoffs, and he made those minutes count. Lowry finished Friday’s loss with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 15 assists for the 21st triple-double of his NBA career.

Lowry joined Elvin Hayes as the only two players in NBA history to record a triple-double while playing more than 50 minutes in a game after their 36th birthday. Hayes did it in 1984 at 38 years old.

“It was kind of one of those situations that you got to do what it takes to win the basketball game,” Lowry said, with the Heat (7-9) continuing its four-game trip on Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). “Coach trusted me a lot. He trusted me tonight. He’s always trusted me, but tonight before I walked into the building, I said: ‘48 [minutes].’ I got to 50.”

Lowry was only called to the bench once during Friday’s game. He exited the contest for the first and only time with 1:10 left in the third quarter and returned with 11:04 remaining in the fourth quarter to play 50:54 of the 53-minute game.

“I felt like I accomplished something by getting him a minute rest in that second half,” Spoelstra said. “But he knows how to pace himself. He really competed. He almost had a triple-double at halftime, it was amazing, and just settled everybody.”

The problem is the Heat was outscored by five points in the 2:06 Lowry spent on the bench against the Wizards. That stretch was enough to cost Miami the game in the one-point loss.

“Kyle was phenomenal,” Heat forward Max Strus said. “Kyle is the reason we were in the game, Kyle is the reason we should have won the game, Kyle was exceptional. He carried us. He made every play we needed him to make, put us all in great positions to succeed. We followed him and he should have led us to a win.”

According to Basketball Reference, Lowry closed Friday’s loss with an impressive Game Score (gives a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game) of 21.6. It’s his sixth-highest Game Score as a member of the Heat.

“Honestly, I’m just proud of the effort that we went out there and gave,” Lowry said. “All of us that played and even the guys that didn’t play and our coaches, we just went out there and fought. It’s really one of those games where you’re just upset that you didn’t win that game. But you go on and you move on.”

STRUS HARD ON HIMSELF

Strus sat in front of his locker following Friday’s loss to the Wizards and took the blame for the defeat.

Strus missed a three-pointer at the final buzzer in overtime that would have won the game for the Heat. He also totaled just six points on 3-of-15 (20 percent) shooting from the field and 0-of-10 shooting from three-point range in the second half on Friday after scoring 16 points on 5-of-9 (55.6 percent) shooting from the field and 3-of-4 (75 percent) shooting on threes in the first two quarters.

“I let the guys down tonight,” Strus said. “I disappeared in the second half and we had a lot of guys step up and play hard, give us great minutes. We should have won the game. I’ll take that one and move on from it.”

Strus, 26, is averaging a career-high 15.5 points this season while shooting 44.5 percent from the field and 36.1 percent on threes. He shot 41 percent from three-point range last season.

“Max is a very emotional character,” Lowry said of Strus taking the blame for Friday’s loss. “He’s a young guy. He takes pride in his game. But he had a big game, he just missed some shots. You’re playing that many minutes and playing defense and up and down running, our pace was frenetic in the first three quarters. He’ll be fine. He’ll make 10 threes next game or something like that.”

IN THE ZONE

The Heat used its 2-3 zone for 63 defensive possessions in Friday’s loss to the Wizards, according to Synergy Sports.

Miami usually relies on its zone defense more often when it’s short-handed, especially when it’s missing some of its best individual defenders like it was against Washington. But this was an unusually high amount, as it marked the most zone possessions the Heat has played in a game since it also used it for 63 defensive possessions in a win over the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 2, 2020.

“Never,” Lowry said when asked following Friday’s loss whether he has ever played so much zone in an NBA game. “You got to do what you got to do. We were the Syracuse Heat tonight.”

The Heat is on pace to set a new modern-day NBA record for most zone possessions played in a season. Miami has now used zone on a league-high 21.4 percent of its defensive possessions this season.

Since Synergy Sports began tracking the stat in 2008-09, the current league-wide record was set by the Heat with 1,053 zone possessions during the 2018-19 season. The Heat is on track to play 1,599 zone possessions this season to shatter that mark.

It has been effective too, with the Heat allowing 0.82 points per possession while using zone compared to 1.04 points points per possession while using its man defense.

“We’re doing whatever is necessary right now,” Spoelstra said. “I’m sure we’re breaking some records for zone, but it’s not like we haven’t done it. We’ve been doing it for a while.”