Despite missing Powell, Heat’s early-season scoring surge continues in win over Hornets. Takeaways

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 144-117 blowout win over the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday night at Kaseya Center to close its quick two-game homestand at 2-0. The Heat (3-1) now embarks on a four-game West Coast trip that begins on Thursday against the San Antonio Spurs:

Along with missing last season’s leading scorer in Tyler Herro as he recovers from ankle surgery, the Heat was also without this season’s leading scorer in Norman Powell. But the Heat’s new-look up-tempo offense continue to open eyes early this season.

The Heat didn’t have Powell because of right groin soreness, an injury that occurred during Tuesday’s morning shootaround. It marked Powell’s first missed game of the season after averaging a team-high 24 points per appearance during the Heat’s first three games of the season.

Despite Herro and Powell’s absences, the Heat again put together a standout offensive performance. Miami totaled 144 points on Tuesday, matching the fourth-most points it has scored in a game in franchise history.

Tuesday’s first half included eight lead changes and four ties, but the Heat still managed to enter halftime with a double-digit lead behind a surge late in the second quarter.

After the Hornets tied the game at 57 with 4:48 left in the second quarter, the Heat closed the first half on a 19-3 run to take a commanding 16-point lead into halftime.

The Heat exploded for 76 points on 55.3 percent shooting from the field and 11-of-21 (52.4 percent) shooting from three-point range in the first half. The 76-point first half is tied for the Heat’s fourth-highest scoring first half in franchise history just days after the Heat’s 86 first-half points in Friday’s road win over the Memphis Grizzlies for the highest scoring half in franchise history.

The Hornets began the second half on a 21-8 run to trim their deficit to three midway through the third quarter, but the Heat responded with a run of their own. Miami closed the period on a 21-7 spurt to regain control and enter the fourth quarter ahead by 17.

The Heat never looked back on its way to the 27-point victory.

Jaime Jaquez Jr. closed with a team-high 28 points for the Heat. Bam Adebayo added 26 points, six rebounds and two assists.

Hornets guard LaMelo Ball finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and nine assists to five turnovers. After a 15-point first quarter, he totaled just five points in the final three quarters.

Larsson started in place of the injured Powell, and turned in a quality performance.

With Larsson making his first start of the season on Tuesday, the Heat went with a starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Larsson, Andrew Wiggins, Bam Adebayo and Nikola Jovic against the Hornets.

Larsson’s minutes had been limited before Tuesday’s game, as he had logged a total of just 16 minutes during the Heat’s first three games of the season.

But with Powell out, Larsson played an impactful 31 minutes on Tuesday.

Larsson, who is in his second NBA season after being drafted by the Heat in the second round last year, finished the Heat’s win over the Hornets with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, five rebounds, three assists and one steal.

With Larsson getting the start for the ailing Powell, the Heat’s core four off the bench remained intact and again made big impact in a win.

The Heat’s four-man reserve rotation of Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic, Dru Smith and Simone Fontecchio has been among the league’s best bench units through the first week of the season.

This group was again impressive on Tuesday, as the Heat’s bench finished with a 58-33 advantage over the Hornets’ reserves.

Jaquez continued his strong start to the season with 28 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the field, 2-of-4 shooting on threes and 8-of-8 shooting from the foul line, four rebounds, five assists and one steal in 28 minutes. He posted a team-best plus/minus of plus 43.

Fontecchio totaled 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting from three-point range in 19 minutes. He was a plus 21.

Jovic recorded 10 points, six rebounds and two assists in 22 minutes. He was a plus 9.

Smith contributed five points, five assists and two steals in 15 minutes. He was a plus 14.

The Heat entered Tuesday’s matchup against the Hornets having outscored opponents by a total of 46 points in the 29 minutes that the bench quartet of Fontecchio, Jaquez, Jovic and Smith played together through the first three games of the season.

On Tuesday, the Heat outscored the Hornets by nine points in the eight first-half minutes that Jaquez, Jovic, Fontecchio and Smith played together. That was enough to turn a three-point deficit when the Heat’s bench unit entered to a six-point advantage by the time some of the starters re-entered the game.

Adebayo continues to make threes, but he’s struggling to generate shots at the rim in the Heat’s new offense.

Adebayo finished the win with 26 points, with nine of his points came on threes. He finished Tuesday’s 3 of 5 from three-point range and 4 of 5 at the rim.

This is the continuation of a trend for Adebayo through the first week of the season, as he entered Tuesday’s game with a career-low 27 percent of his shot attempts have come from at the rim this season, according to Cleaning The Glass. Instead, a career-high 32 percent of Adebayo’s shots have come from three-point range so far this season.

The good news for the Heat and Adebayo is that he’s making his threes, as he’s now 9 of 23 (39.1 percent) on threes this season.

Adebayo has now made a three-pointer in a career-best 16 consecutive games, dating back to last season.

Along with their on-court battle on Tuesday, the Heat and Hornets have also been linked in recent headlines in the wake of Heat guard Terry Rozier’s recent arrest. Rozier’s attorney spoke on Tuesday.

Rozier was arrested last Thursday by the FBI because of his alleged involvement in a sports betting scheme.

Rozier was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is accused of providing inside information to co-conspirators about his intentions to leave a game early due to a foot injury in March 2023 while he was with the Hornets, which enabled the co-conspirators to place large bets on him not reaching statistical thresholds.

“This is an innocent guy who’s getting completely screwed, to use some legal vernacular, in terms of his career,” Rozier’s attorney Jim Trusty said during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News Channel’s The Will Cain Show. “It’s an 11-year vet. He’s played 1,000 games. They’re latching onto a game where the NBA literally cleared him two years ago and trying to suggest that somehow they know better and that they know he was a conspirator, as opposed to just somebody who had a hurt foot.”

Ten months before the Heat acquired Rozier from the Hornets through a trade midway through the 2023-24 season, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity involving Rozer in the hours before the Hornets’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans in March 2023. This sparked an investigation by the NBA, with the league determining Rozier did not violate NBA rules.

But following its own protocol, the NBA did not inform the Heat (or other teams) of that red flag or its investigation in the months that followed, nor did it inform the Heat prior to the league approving the January 2024 trade that sent Rozier to the Heat for Kyle Lowry and a first-round pick, multiple sources told the Miami Herald.

The Hornets also did not inform the Heat, sources said, though Charlotte is refusing to say if they were even aware of the matter at the time of the trade.

All of this has left the Heat seeking answers in the immediate aftermath of Rozier’s arrest, which led to the NBA placing Rozier “on immediate leave” from the team while still being paid.

“I will just tell you, confiding in a friend, a childhood friend, and saying, man I’m banged up, it’s the end of the season, we’re out of the playoffs, I think I’m going to sit early in this game, that’s not a crime,” Trusty said on Fox News. “That’s nothing. That’s not even prohibited by any sort of statute. That’s simply confiding in a friend. And maybe the league should create rules that say you can only tell a manager or trainer or your priest or your mom. But he told a friend. And whatever that friend did is not on Terry. … The allegations in the indictment itself are thin.”

According to Rozier’s attorney, the fact that his client went on to miss the rest of the 2022-23 season with the foot injury that forced him out of the March 2023 game in question actually cost Rozier money.

“Terry Rozier had a $100 million contract and a big shoe endorsement,” Trusty said on Fox News. “This indictment actually suggests that he faked the injury, which is absurd. People knew about it. Medical people knew about it. Staff knew about it. Friends knew about it. This was a guy who was banged up after a long 82-game season. The Hornets are out of the playoffs. So he and others were telling the Hornets coaching staff, time to sit him, man. It’s a waste.

“And so when he sat that game and the next five or six games to end the season, he actually lost money. I mean, it’s so contradictory to this kind of sexy gambling story. He lost money on his shoe contract because he didn’t play enough games because, like a lot of NBA starters, by game 70, he’s got all sorts of issues. In this case, it was his foot. It was a chronic injury.”

Meanwhile, ESPN reported Thursday that Rozier was facing an $8 million tax lien from the Internal Revenue Service in the same year that Rozier was alleged to have manipulated his performance in an NBA game as part of gambling schemes in 2023.