Heat Blow By Suns 115-98 After Multiple Ejections
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — It was the kind of win that Miami Heat fans had grown accustomed to over the past four seasons.
Tyler Johnson scored a career-high 26 points, Goran Dragic added 21 against his former team and the Miami Heat beat the Phoenix Suns 115-98 on Monday night in a game that included two third-quarter altercations.
Hassan Whiteside finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds before getting ejected for Miami, which got 16 points and nine assists from Dwyane Wade.
Eric Bledsoe scored 20 for the Suns, who got 18 points and 13 rebounds from P.J. Tucker. Markieff Morris and Brandon Knight scored 13 apiece, and Alex Len had 10 points and 11 rebounds.
The story line was supposed to be Dragic facing the club that traded him to Miami last month, amid hurt feelings on both sides.
Emotions boiled over instead. In all, there were five player technicals, three ejections and two flagrant fouls assessed in the third quarter alone, the 12 minutes of play needing 42 minutes to complete.
Morris was ejected for a flagrant-2 foul against Dragic in the third quarter, and Whiteside and Len were both tossed later in the period after getting tangled up under the Miami basket.
Morris' ejection with 8:43 left came after referees — who took at least two long looks at the replays — determined that he shoved Dragic in the back on a fast break. Dragic landed hard on the wood behind the basket, remaining down briefly.
Whiteside and Len went at it about 4 minutes later, scuffling after Whiteside had a rebound and dunk.
And the Heat got another scare later in the third, when Johnson went down and stayed there, holding his left ankle. He returned to the game moments later, finishing 10 for 13 from the field.
Miami was down six in the early going, then — on the strength of its highest-scoring quarter of the season — seemed to have command at halftime.
The Heat scored 39 points in the second, one more than they managed in the fourth against Atlanta to set their season best on Saturday, and went into the locker room with a 62-48 lead. Wade and Dragic combined for 17 points in the second and Miami led by as many as 18 before Knight and Marcus Morris made a pair of late 3s.
That all seemed long forgotten by the finish.
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