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MIAMI – Rookies Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson are acclimating just fine to their first NBA playoff push.
Winslow scored a season-high 20 points, Richardson added 17 – and pulled off a dazzling sequence in the fourth quarter – and the Miami Heat held off the Denver Nuggets 124-119 on Monday night.
Dwyane Wade scored 19 points and Joe Johnson added 18 for the Heat. Hassan Whiteside finished with another double-double off the bench, scoring 12 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter and adding 10 rebounds.
“We won tonight, but shootouts, that’s not our identity,” Winslow said. “It took us a while to wake up, but we got the stops we needed to do and came out with the (win).”
Kenneth Faried matched the best single-game shooting effort in the NBA this season, going 11 for 11 and finishing with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Emmanuel Mudiay had 23 points and 10 assists for Denver, which had its four-game winning streak snapped.
Faried’s 11 for 11 matched Oklahoma City’s Enes Kanter for the best night from the floor this season.
It also was the best regular-season shooting night in AmericanAirlines Arena history, topping the 10 for 10 by Tyson Chandler in 2008.
Gary Harris finished with 18 for Denver.
The Nuggets had a chance to tie the game with 4:15 left after a Heat turnover, but Richardson snuffed that out.
He chased down D.J. Augustin to get a block at the rim, Winslow grabbed the rebound and the ball found its way back to Richardson – who set up Johnson for a 3-pointer that gave the Heat a much-needed bit of breathing room.
Miami’s lead wouldn’t be less than three again, and the Heat moved within a half-game of Boston for No. 3 in the Eastern Conference.
Faried made all six of his shots in the first quarter, then went 3 for 3 in the second and made his lone attempt of the third quarter to get to 10 for 10 going into the final 12 minutes.
Denver led by seven late in the third, before Miami used a 21-8 run over a span of about 5 minutes to go up 103-97. That’s when Faried came back in and got to 11 for 11 on a tip-in to end the Heat run, but he didn’t get another shot.
