Without Bam, Heat caps winless three-game trip with loss to Bucks. Takeaways and details

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 122-114 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks (2-1) on Monday night at Fiserv Forum to close a winless three-game trip. The Heat now returns to Miami to begin a three-game homestand on Wednesday against the Brooklyn Nets:

The Heat is off to a 1-3 start for the second straight year.

With the Bucks playing their leading trio of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard and Khris Middleton and the Heat missing one of its best players, Monday’s result wasn’t necessarily surprising.

But the bottom line is the Heat has started the season slow for the second straight year and went 0-3 on its first trip of the season.

The Bucks took the lead with 2:23 left in the first quarter and never trailed again. The Heat entered halftime trailing by 10 points and fell behind by as many as 25 points in the second half.

The Heat kept pushing, making a late 27-10 run to turn that 25-point deficit into an eight-point deficit with 3:33 remaining in the fourth quarter. Miami used a lineup of Tyler Herro, Josh Richardson, Duncan Robinson, Nikola Jovic and Orlando Robinson for most of that fourth-quarter spurt.

Duncan Robinson then hit a floater to cut the Heat’s deficit to six points with 1:22 to play.

It appeared the Bucks finally closed the door on the Heat when Antetokounmpo finished over Orlando Robinson for an and-one layup with 1:16 left. Antetokounmpo hit the free throw to complete the three-point play, extending Milwaukee’s lead to nine.

But a Duncan Robinson three-pointer again trimmed the deficit to six with 28.6 seconds to play. The Bucks then committed a five-second violation on the next possession, keeping the Heat alive.

That’s when Herro missed a three-pointer with 18.9 seconds left and Antetokounmpo grabbed the defensive rebound, ending the Heat’s hopes of completing the comeback.

“We earned that 25-point deficit and then that young group came in and really battled, did a lot of good things and I’m sure Milwaukee was just trying to play it out and hopefully we were going to go away,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But our guys did some good things out there. That part is encouraging.”

The big story line entering the night: Lillard going up against the Heat for the first time since requesting a trade to Miami this past summer.

Lillard, who the Portland Trail Blazers instead dealt to the Bucks last month, finished with 25 points, five rebounds and four assists.

Lillard was one of three Bucks players who closed with double-digit points led by 33 points from Antetokounmpo.

The Heat, playing without starting center Bam Adebayo because of a hip injury, struggled to generate efficient offense before its big fourth-quarter run.

Through three quarters, the Heat shot just 6 of 23 (26.1 percent) from three-point range and had just seven shots from within the restricted area.

Even after shooting 15 of 23 (65.2 percent) from the field and 7 of 11 (63.6 percent) from three-point range in the fourth quarter, the Heat still posted a mediocre offensive rating of 109.6 points scored per 100 possessions on Monday.

Herro finished the loss with a game-high 35 points for the Heat while shooting an efficient 12 of 21 from the field and 9 of 10 from the foul line.

“I thought Tyler was very good tonight,” Spoelstra said.

The only real blemish on Herro’s stat line on Monday, beyond the loss, was his missed free throw that ended his streak of consecutive made free throws at 48. He finished two shy of matching the Heat record of 50 consecutive made free throws set by Glen Rice in 1994.

“This is probably the best I’ve felt all season,” Herro said following his 35-point performance. “Just mentally slowing down, getting to my spots, getting guys involved. It’s the fourth or fifth game of the season, I’m going to continue to get better, more patient and more comfortable in my role. So I’m fine. I’ll be good.”

Jimmy Butler’s early-season shooting struggles continued, finishing Monday’s loss with 13 points on 4-of-11 shooting from the field, four rebounds and four assists in 29 minutes. He has shot just 13 of 40 (32.5 percent) from the field through the Heat’s first four games.

Butler did not play in the fourth quarter, as Spoelstra instead stuck with the lineup of Herro, Richardson, Jovic, Duncan Robinson and Orlando Robinson that made the late-game run.

That lineup outscored the Bucks by nine points over the final 7:23 of the game.

“Those guys earned that,” Spoelstra said of his decision to stick with that closing lineup instead of subbing in Butler down the stretch. “I know that always becomes some kind of discourse out there. Do you put your guys back in? It still was a double-digit lead. At that point, everybody had cooled off so much and probably mentally checked out of the game, and those guys were changing the momentum.”

The Heat’s early-season injury issues continue.

After closing last regular season with the second-most missed games in the NBA (289) due to injury based on Spotrac’s injury tracker, that unfortunate trend has continued for the Heat early this season.

The Heat has played without multiple rotation players in each of the first four games of the regular season.

On Monday, the Heat was without Adebayo (left hip contusion) and two players who are expected to be key components of the bench rotation in Haywood Highsmith (left knee sprain) and Caleb Martin (left knee tendinosis).

It marked the first game Adebayo has missed this season.

Martin missed his third straight game on Monday with lingering knee pain that stems from offseason workouts and Highsmith has yet to play this season after spraining his knee during the preseason.

These injury issues have forced the Heat to use three different starting lineups in the first four games of the season.

Usual backup center Thomas Bryant started in place of Adebayo alongside the Heat’s four other usual starters Kyle Lowry, Herro, Butler and Kevin Love.

But there was some positive news: Richardson returned from injury to make his season debut.

After missing the first three games of the season with a foot injury and remaining in Miami for the first two games of the trip, Richardson re-joined the Heat in Milwaukee and played against the Bucks.

Richardson entered off the bench for his first action on Monday as the Heat’s first substitution with 6:02 left in the first quarter and scored his first points of the season on a 14-foot jumper with 10:05 remaining in the second quarter.

Richardson finished the loss with six points on 3-of-7 shooting from the field, three rebounds and two assists in 23 minutes off the bench. He was on the court during the Heat’s late-game run that fell short.

“It was good,” Richardson said of his return. “I’ve been wanting to play for a minute. I’ve been itching to play. Being able to get out there with the guys was good. But I wish we could have gotten a win. But I think we showed good signs, so we’ll move on.”

Butler (rest) and Love (shoulder) also returned Monday after their one-game absences. Love and Butler both sat out Saturday’s loss in Minneapolis.

The injury shuffle again forced the Heat to change its bench rotation.

With Richardson back and Adebayo missing his first game of the season, the Heat used a new bench rotation on Monday. The Heat went with a four-man bench rotation of Richardson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Duncan Robinson and Orlando Robinson.

Richardson and Orlando Robinson were the new additions to the bench unit. Richardson is expected to be a regular off the bench, but Orlando Robinson only played as the backup center to fill the void Bryant left when he was moved into the starting lineup for the injured Adebayo.

Orlando Robinson, who has not been in the Heat’s rotation to begin the season, finished Monday’s defeat with 11 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in 26 minutes.

Also, Jovic entered the game with 7:23 left in the fourth quarter and the Bucks already ahead by 17 points. Jovic was effective in his limited playing time, finishing with five points and four rebounds while playing the final 7:23 of the contest.

The list of available Heat players who were active but did not play on Friday included RJ Hampton, Dru Smith and Jamal Cain.

It’s notable that Smith was left out of Monday’s rotation, as he played in each of the first three games of the season and logged double-digit minutes in each of the previous two games. But Richardson’s return pushed Smith out of the rotation.

Next up for the Heat is a homestand, but another long road trip is right around the corner.

This three-game trip that ended with Monday’s loss marked the start of a 16-game stretch that includes 12 road games. And this challenging 16-game segment of the schedule isn’t off to a good start, with the Heat falling to 0-3 during this stretch.

The Heat now returns to Miami for a three-game homestand.

But the Heat will hit the road again in a week for a four-game trip that opens with a matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies on Nov. 8.

The Heat’s 12 road games in its first 17 games of the season is the most road games for any NBA team during this span.

So the Heat will need to overcome a challenging schedule over the next few weeks to dig out of this early-season hole.

“We’re not starting out like we want to,” Richardson said. “So we got to respond, we got to get rolling here.”