Miami - Greg Popovich will have to wait at least a few more days before he can set an NBA record on a regular basis.
Season win.
He was noticed by the starting center of his Olympic gold medal-winning team at the Tokyo Games.
Bam Adebayo - who played for Popovich last summer with USA Basketball - scored a season-high 36 points, Tyler Herro added 27 off the bench and the Miami Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs 133-129 on Saturday for 16 points. Overcame initial losses. Night.
"I have to do my job," Adebayo said.
Jimmy Butler scored 27 points in 30 minutes to help Miami improve the Eastern Conference's best record to 40-21. Butler didn't play in the fourth quarter, partly because of some souring, partly because Heat coach Eric Spoelstra wanted to see if the group he had on the floor could finish things off.
did it. Barely, but it happened.
"We did a lot of offense through Baum and Tyler in the fourth quarter," Spoelstra said. "They were great experiences and really important to our team."
The Heat's win put Popovich on 1,334 regular-season victories in his career as coach of the Spurs, meaning he remains one win behind Don Nelson - one of his former bosses - on the NBA's career list.
Popovich's closure on the record has been a story throughout the season, especially in recent times as it has become imminent. And, perhaps to no one's surprise, he is ready to end the chase.
"To be in this position is strange, surreal, unpredictable, never planned, and all of the above," Popovich said. "That's the best way to describe it."
Devin Wassel had a career-high 22 points for Spurs. Keita Bates-Diop and Lonnie Walker IV also had 22 players for San Antonio, receiving 19 points and 11 assists from Trey Jones.
Kyle ended up with Lowry
13 points and 10 assists for Miami.
Spurs were without their three leading scorers. All-star DeJonte Murray was ruled out with a left knee injury - "probably overly cautious," Popovich said - while Olympic gold medalist Keldon Johnson and starting center Jacob Poelt were both isolated from lower back pain. was given.
"We just kept playing," said Popovich. "That's the character of these guys. That's probably the most special thing about them - the youth group that keeps playing. So proud of them. Definitely a great job against a good basketball team."
Perhaps the absence took Miami into a serious false sense of early safety, as the Spurs got everything they wanted in the first half.
The Spurs scored 157 points - the most ever by a San Antonio team in the Popovich era - in a double-overtime win in Washington on Friday, then continued scoring to start things off in Miami.
San Antonio led 28–12 at the start and 40–28 when the first quarter was done, matching the number of points the Heat had scored in any quarter this season.
The Heat responded with 40-18 runs in the next 14 minutes, going up to 10.
But the Heat didn't take the lead for good until the end of time in the third quarter, when Adebayo scored a 21-footer to lead Miami 99-97 into the final quarter.
It was the start for him to score 15 points in the 4:02 interval, but the Heat still had to sweat through the end.
"It's great to know that my guys can go out there and dub," Butler said.