Adebayo hits buzzer-beating three to lift short-handed Heat past Pistons. Takeaways and details

With one shot, Bam Adebayo turned what could have been one of the Miami Heat’s worst losses of the season into one of the Heat’s most memorable wins of the season.

Adebayo nailed a game-winning three as the final buzzer sounded to lift the short-handed Heat to a 104-101 win over the Detroit Pistons (12-55) on Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena.

The Heat (37-30) swept the two-game weekend set in Detroit after also defeating the Pistons on Friday. The Heat also swept the four-game regular-season series over the Pistons, which hold the NBA’s second-worst record.

“Shout out to Bam for saving everybody’s day on that one,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said. “Just happy to get the win.”

But with the Heat missing a large chunk of its usual rotation because of injuries, Sunday’s win wasn’t easy or pretty.

Despite leading by 17 points with 5:11 left in the third quarter against one of the NBA’s worst teams, the game was still decided in the final seconds during a dramatic sequence of events.

After the Pistons tied the game at 101 on a layup from Cade Cunningham with 42.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Robinson committed a turnover for the Heat with 23.7 seconds to play.

But instead of the Pistons holding for the final shot with the score tied and the shot clock off, Cunningham made a mistake and put up a three with about 10 seconds left in hopes of giving Detroit a three-point lead. Instead, Cunningham’s shot bounced off the front of the rim and into Heat guard Terry Rozier’s hands for the defensive rebound with nine seconds to play.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra opted against calling a timeout and allowed Rozier to rush the ball up the court in a semi-transition situation. But when Rozier found two Pistons defenders in front of him, he dumped the ball to a trailing Adebayo for the buzzer-beating game-winning 31-foot shot from the top of the three-point line.

It goes down as the longest made shot of Adebayo’s NBA career.

“It’s that age-old question: Do you take a timeout or not?” Spoelstra said. “I saw the ball go into Terry’s hands. So I thought he was going to be able to race it up the court. Those are kind of like freebies. Whatever we were going to diagram, if we had to try to work it for the last shot, I don’t think it would have been as open as this one.

“Was I anticipating that it would be a Bam trail three? No.”

As soon as Adebayo’s shot went in, Heat teammates mobbed him in celebration. Adebayo closed the victory with 20 points and 17 rebounds in 38 minutes.

“It’s one of those moments, a great moment for us as a team,” Adebayo said.

Adebayo has now hit a three-pointer in three straight games for the longest such streak of his NBA career. He is 3 of 3 from three-point range in his last three games after shooting just 1 of 14 from behind the arc this season prior to this stretch.

Adebayo’s four made three-pointers this season are a new career-high, surpassing his previous career-high of three made threes during the 2018-19 season.

Sunday’s close finish came despite one of the highest-scoring halves of Robinson’s career.

The Heat entered halftime ahead by 10 points behind a 21-point first half from Robinson. That’s tied for the second-highest scoring first half of his NBA career.

Robinson finished the win with a season-high 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 7-of-12 shooting on threes, to go with four rebounds and five assists. It marked just the second time in his NBA career that Robinson has hit the 30-point mark, with the other time coming when he scored a career-high 34 points in an overtime win over the Atlanta Hawks on Dec. 10, 2019.

“He came out super aggressive behind the three-point line and then that opened up a lot of different things from there,” Spoelstra said of Robinson. “Once he knocked down a few, then we were able to run offense through him and then play off of some of their aggressive coverages trying to get him off the line.”

Rozier added 17 points, six rebounds and nine assists for the Heat on his 30th birthday. One of those assists was the game-winner to Adebayo.

The Heat is right back at it with an important matchup against the 76ers in Philadelphia on Monday (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and ESPN) to complete the road back-to-back.

The Heat and 76ers hold the same record at 37-30, but the seventh-place Heat sits ahead of the eighth-place 76ers in the Eastern Conference because Miami currently holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Heat carries a 2-0 lead in the four-game regular-season series between the two teams and can clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker over the 76ers with a win on Monday.

Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Pistons on Sunday:

The Heat’s season-long injury issues continue.

Along with again missing rotation regulars Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendintis), Kevin Love (right heel bruise) and Josh Richardson (season-ending right shoulder surgery), the Heat also was without starters Jimmy Butler (right foot contusion) and Nikola Jovic (right hamstring strain) on Sunday.

Herro missed his 11th straight game, Love missed his ninth straight game and Richardson is out for the rest of the season with their respective injuries.

But Butler and Jovic suffered their injuries during Friday’s win in Detroit.

The right foot was also an issue for Butler earlier this season, when he missed seven straight games in January because of a right toe MP joint sprain. Sunday marked the 20th game that Butler has missed this season because of various reasons.

But Butler’s current foot injury is not expected to keep him out for an extended period. He could make his return as soon as Monday against the 76ers on the second night of the Heat’s road back-to-back.

“We’ll treat him day to day,” Spoelstra said Sunday when asked about Butler’s status. “His body will let us know.”

Sunday marked the first game that Jovic has missed this season with an injury — not counting the two games he sat out in November because of an illness. It remains to be seen how long the strained hamstring will keep Jovic out.

“He was feeling a little bit better yesterday and today,” Spoelstra said of Jovic. “But his body will let us know. We’re doing treatment pretty much around the clock on a lot of these guys.”

With the Heat missing Butler, Herro, Jovic, Love, Richardson, Cole Swider (G League) and Alondes Williams (G League), Miami was left with 11 available players on Sunday.

Those injuries forced the Heat to use another new starting lineup.

The Heat used the starting lineup of Rozier, Robinson, Butler, Jovic and Adebayo for nine straight games before injuries forced changes on Sunday.

With Butler and Jovic out, the Heat opened Sunday’s game with a lineup of Rozier, Robinson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo. This went down as the first time this five-man combination has started a game for the Heat.

It marked the 32nd different starting lineup the Heat has used this season, which set a new franchise record. The previous Heat record for most different starting lineups used in a season was 31 in the 2014-15 season.

The only players on the roster who have not yet started a game for the Heat this season are newly-acquired Patty Mills, and two-way contract players Swider and Williams.

Jaquez, who started Sunday in place of the injured Butler, made his 18th start of the season. He finished with 15 points, three rebounds and four assists.

Highsmith, who started Sunday in place of the injured Jovic, made his 25th start of the season. He contributed three points, two rebounds and one assist.

The Heat’s injuries also created an opportunity for guard Delon Wright to log his first game minutes in more than two weeks.

Snapping a streak of seven straight DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision), Wright contributed six points, three rebounds and two steals in 21 minutes off the bench in Sunday’s win.

Wright signed a pro-rated minimum contract for the rest of the season to join the Heat last month after agreeing to a buyout with the Washington Wizards.

Wright played 35 minutes in his Heat debut in a Feb. 26 win over the Sacramento Kings and then played 17 minutes the next night against the Portland Trail Blazers. But he has since fallen out of the Heat’s rotation, logging a total of three minutes of playing time and receiving seven DNP-CDs in the next eight games before playing extended minutes on Sunday.

The short-handed Heat used Wright, Caleb Martin, Thomas Bryant and Mills off the bench to complete its nine-man rotation on Sunday.

The only available Heat players who did not play on Sunday were Jamal Cain and Orlando Robinson.

Robinson hit another milestone during his season-high 30-point performance.

When Robinson hit his first three-pointer of Sunday’s game with 10:35 left in the first quarter, he became the fastest player in NBA history to make 1,000 career threes.

Robinson did it in 343 regular-season games. That’s faster than the previous record-holder Buddy Hield, who made his 1,000th NBA three-pointer in his 350th regular-season game.

Robinson also set the league record for the fewest regular-season games needed to reach 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and 900 made threes. He’s also the franchise leader for the most career three-pointers made by a Heat player.

Making Robinson’s accomplishment even more impressive is the fact that he has done it while shooting an efficient 40 percent from three-point range during his NBA career.

The Heat’s hope continues to be that Herro will return before the end of the regular season.

Herro hasn’t played in more than three weeks because of right foot medial tendinitis. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection on Friday to treat his injured right foot and will be re-evaluated in one to two weeks, according to multiple league sources.

The pain in Herro’s foot hasn’t subsided and the decision was made to use a PRP injection to help speed up the recovery process.

But even with just four weeks left in the regular season, the Heat is still hoping to get Herro back before the start of the postseason.

“That’s the hope,” Spoelstra said Sunday when asked about the possibility of getting Herro back before the end of the regular season. “He’s been making progress and we’ll treat him day to day, keep on making progress. And again, his body will let us know.”

Following Sunday’s win, the Heat has just 15 games left on its regular-season schedule.

Herro, 24, has started in each of his 36 appearances this season. He’s averaging career-highs in points (20.8 per game) and assists (4.4 per game) while shooting 43.7 percent from the field and 39.9 percent on 8.1 three-point attempts per game this season.