Late-game issues continue, but Heat encouraged after win over Nets. Takeaways and reaction.

It looked like the Miami Heat was close to rock bottom after consecutive losses to two of the league’s worst teams earlier this week.

Miami’s response to that season-worst stretch has been encouraging. After two straight ugly losses to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday and the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday, the Heat (38-22) earned its second consecutive win in a 116-113 victory over the Brooklyn Nets (26-33) on Saturday at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Heat improved to 2-1 on its current five-game homestand. The Nets dropped their fourth consecutive game.

“Coming off a tough beginning of the week and a disappointing Minnesota game, this process started the next day coming in here and getting connected,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “... As the coach, I’m encouraged about these two games. They weren’t perfect games, but competition isn’t. It’s not supposed to be. But the way we responded to that adversity, it was a good sign.”

With both teams playing on the back end of back-to-backs, the Heat was ahead for most of the night and led by as many as 14 points with 8:31 to play. But Miami again allowed its opponent to put together a late comeback, as Brooklyn rallied to cut the deficit to just two with 1:20 to play.

That’s when guard Goran Dragic made an important step-back jumper to extend the Heat’s lead to four with 13.7 seconds to play.

But the Nets wouldn’t go away, with Joe Harris hitting a three to trim the Heat’s lead to one with 11.4 seconds remaining.

Brooklyn was forced to take an intentional foul, and Jimmy Butler made just one of the two free throws to push Miami’s lead to two with 9.1 seconds left.

The Heat then needed a defensive stop and got it, as Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie threw a pass out of bounds with 1.7 seconds to play on the potential game-tying possession.

Dragic then took the inbound pass and was intentionally fouled with 0.4 seconds remaining. He made one of the two free throws to seal the win for the Heat.

Dinwiddie led the Nets with a team-high 25 points and 12 assists.

Next up for the Heat is a matchup against reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday at AmericanAirlines Arena. The Bucks own the league’s best record at 51-8.

Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Nets ...

1. The Heat almost allowed another fourth-quarter lead to go to waste, and it was fortunate to hold on.

The Heat has won one fourth quarter since Feb. 12, and that one win came in Friday’s victory over the Dallas Mavericks. Miami has been outscored by a total of 47 points in the fourth quarters of the past seven games.

Those struggles have been costly.

The Heat led by five points with 1:51 to play against the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 20, and lost.

The Heat led by 19 points entering the fourth quarter of Monday’s game against the Cavaliers, and lost.

The Heat led by 12 with 3:59 to play against the Timberwolves on Wednesday, and lost.

On Saturday, the Heat led by 14 with 8:31 remaining, and the Nets rallied to cut the deficit to just one with 11.4 seconds to play. Brooklyn then had an opportunity to tie or win the game with possession of the ball down two and 9.1 seconds left, but Dinwiddie threw a pass out of bounds with 1.7 seconds on the clock.

The Nets ended up outscoring the Heat 33-25 in the fourth quarter.

“I think the more you go through these experiences under duress, you learn from all of it,” Spoelstra said. “We learned from the disappointments over the week and we learned some things this weekend with these two wins.

“This is a relatively new group in terms of going through competition together. The best way to do it is to go through these types of games together that have stress.”

What has been the common thread behind Miami’s recent late-game struggles? Defensive issues.

The Heat has allowed opponents to average 32.3 points on 50 percent shooting from the field 42.3 percent shooting on threes over the past seven fourth quarters.

Miami was able to escape with a win on Saturday. But the Heat needs to clean up these late-game mistakes before it gets to the playoffs.

“We won,” Heat big man Bam Adebayo said of his takeaway from Saturday’s fourth quarter. “If we win, I have no problem going through these growing pains. Came out with a win tonight.”

Adebayo joked that the sprained ankle he’s currently play through is “starting to feel much better when we win.”

“When we lost the way we lost the last couple of games, it starts to wear on your mind,” Adebayo said. “It feels good to be back in the win column.”

2. Post All-Star break Kendrick Nunn has been really good.

The Heat’s rookie guard turned in another standout performance Saturday, finishing with 21 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the field and 3-of-7 shooting on threes. Nunn made his 114th, 115th and 116th threes of the season in the game to set a new Heat rookie record for threes made in a season, surpassing the previous mark of 114 threes set by Mario Chalmers in 2008-09.

Nunn, 24, is averaging 20 points while shooting 55.6 percent from the field and 45.9 percent on threes in six games since the All-Star break.

“Kendrick has given us a lot of scoring,” Spoelstra said. “He is fearless and can get his own shot. He has the three-point range, but he can also drive to the rim. That has been very important to us.”

One of the most impressive aspects of Nunn’s recent surge is his assist-to-turnover ratio. He has accumulated 24 assists to only four turnovers since the break.

This has been an encouraging stretch for various reasons, but especially because Nunn entered the break in a shooting slump. Over his final five games before All-Star Weekend, Nunn shot 22 of 83 (26.5 percent) from the field and 7 of 33 (21.2 percent) on threes.

3. It wasn’t an efficient shooting night for Dragic, but he found other ways to make an impact.

The 33-year-old reserve guard shot just 6 of 16 from the field. But he still finished with a quality stat line of 19 points, three rebounds and 10 assists in 32 minutes, as the Heat outscored the Nets by eight points with Dragic on the court.

Dragic was aggressive from the start, recording 11 points, three rebounds and five assists in the first half. That included a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer to send the Heat into the locker room with an eight-point lead.

Dragic also made possibly the biggest shot of the night, a step-back jumper with 13.7 seconds remaining to put the Heat ahead by four points. He also made a free throw with 0.4 seconds left.

Dragic and Nunn combined to score 40 points for the Heat on Saturday. Miami’s All-Star duo of Adebayo (16 points and 12 rebounds) and Butler (16 points, six rebounds and eight assists) combined for 32 points on 12-of-26 shooting.

4. Jae Crowder continues to play a lot of fourth-quarter minutes.

For now, it looks like the 29-year-old forward will play a big role for the Heat down the stretch of games. Crowder played in all but three seconds of Saturday’s fourth quarter, scoring two points on 1-of-3 shooting in the period.

Crowder, who is one of three players the Heat acquired in a trade on Feb. 6, finished Saturday’s win with 13 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes and four rebounds.

Crowder, who has played in the fourth quarter of all nine games he has been available for with the Heat since the trade, has played 96 of the 108 possible fourth-quarter minutes that he has been with Miami for. The Heat is a minus-33 with Crowder on the court in those late-game minutes.

But overall, Crowder has been a solid addition for the Heat. He’s averaging 13.8 points on 46.4 percent shooting from the field and 43.5 percent shooting on threes, 6.1 rebounds and 1.9 steals in nine games with Miami.

5. The Heat strengthened its grip on the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference. With Saturday’s win, the fourth-place Heat moved one game ahead of the fifth-place Philadelphia 76ers in the East standings. Along with finding itself one game ahead of Philadelphia, the Heat also holds the tiebreaker over the 76ers if the teams should finish with the same record because Miami won the season series 3-1

This is important because if there’s one realistic regular-season goal for the Heat, it’s to earn home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. To achieve that, Miami has to finish with one of the conference’s top-four seeds. If the season ended Saturday, the Heat would have home-court advantage in a first-round series against the 76ers.

But Miami still has 22 regular-season games remaining, so there’s still plenty of time for teams to move around in the standings. The next week could be an opportunity for the Heat to extend its lead over the 76ers because Philadelphia begins a four-game West Coast trip on Sunday without the All-Star duo of Joel Embiid (sprained left shoulder) and Ben Simmons (lower back nerve impingement).

The Heat is also 3.5 games behind the third-place Boston Celtics and two games ahead of the sixth-place Indiana Pacers.