MIAMI (AP) — James Johnson scored 20 points, Wayne Ellington added 17 and the Miami Heat ran away in the third quarter to beat the Washington Wizards 129-102 on Saturday night.
Tyler Johnson, Josh Richardson, Rodney McGruder and Kelly Olynyk all scored 13 for the Heat, who never trailed and outscored Washington 43-28 in the third. That was Miami’s highest-scoring quarter in a regular-season contest since Oct. 30, 2013 - 394 games ago.
Dwyane Wade got the 8,000th field goal of his career in the first half, but left less than a minute into the fourth quarter with what was diagnosed as a mild left hamstring strain. The Heat have a six-hour flight to Portland on Sunday, in advance of a game there Monday.
Jodie Meeks scored 23 for the Wizards, whose five-game winning streak was snapped. Bradley Beal scored 14 for Washington, which was outscored 76-42 in the paint - even on a night where Heat center Hassan Whiteside couldn’t play because of hip pain and his replacement, Bam Adebayo, was limited with foul trouble.
Washington was within 46-44 with 3:51 left in the second quarter, and from there it was all Heat. Over the next 16 minutes, Miami outscored the Wizards 71-35.
It was Miami’s 11th consecutive game scoring at least 100 points, tying the third-longest such streak in team history.
Miami (36-31) carved out a split of the four-game season series with Washington, plus got within two games of the Wizards (38-29) in the Eastern Conference playoff race. A loss on Saturday and the Heat chances of catching the Wizards would have taken a serious hit - since they would have been four games down and with no hope of winning a tiebreaker.
