Lightly-used reserve Kel’el Ware, a 7-foot rookie, tied his career high with 25 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots as the host Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs 128-107 on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Ware played 34 minutes as he was needed to guard 7-3 Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama, who finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and one block.<\/p>\n
Entering Sunday, Ware was averaging just 13.2 minutes and 6.6 points in 25 games, all as a reserve, and he was not used in 15 contests.<\/p>\n
Also for Miami, Duncan Robinson scored 21 points; Terry Rozier had 20 points off the bench; and Tyler Herro overcame a slow start to post 18 points. Herro had just two points at halftime.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Butler, in his second game back from a seven-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team, collected eight points, seven assists and three rebounds in 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
Devin Vassell topped the Spurs with 23 points.<\/p>\n
San Antonio led 30-20 at the end of the first quarter as Wembanyama had 11 points. For Miami, Herro had his first scoreless first quarter of the season, missing on both of his shot attempts.<\/p>\n
In the second period, Wembanyama went scoreless, missing all six of his shots, including three from distance. Miami capitalized, rallying to take a 46-41 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
Ware scored nine points in the second quarter, when he was a plus-15. The Spurs shot just 1-for-10 on 3-pointers in that quarter.<\/p>\n
The Heat trailed most of the first half, but it was Rozier’s 3-pointer with 3:20 left in the second quarter that gave Miami a 43-41 advantage.<\/p>\n
Miami never trailed again.<\/p>\n
Herro finally got hot in the third period, making 4 of 5 shots including a 3-pointer as Miami blew the game open, taking a 92-68 lead. Herro and Robinson each had 11 points in the third.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama was held to three points in the third period as Miami outshot San Antonio 70.8 percent to 44.0 percent.<\/p>\n
In the fourth quarter, the Spurs never got closer than 14 points as Miami snapped a three-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
The Spurs have now lost three in a row, and Wembanyama is 0-3 in his brief career against Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lightly-used reserve Kel’el Ware, a 7-foot rookie, tied his career high with 25 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots as the host Miami Heat defeated… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\n