A valiant comeback effort wasn’t enough.
The Atlanta Hawks, winners of four of their previous six, slammed a comeback effort from the Miami Heat shut, earning the 121-113 victory on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday.
Tyler Herro’s triple — his first-and-only 3-pointer of the game — with 58.3 seconds left brought a once-26-point Hawks lead down to 115-111. Trae Young’s alley-oop to Clint Capela followed by Herro’s floater kept it at four with 34 seconds remaining.
Young sunk a pair of free throws with 25.4 left, but Atlanta forced a five-second violation on the ensuing SLOB — all but thwarting Miami’s comeback effort.
The Hawks led from wire-to-wire, shooting 59.2 percent from the floor and 48.2 percent from 3-point range, including 66.7 percent and 8-of-12 percent from 3-point range in the first half, respectively.
Dejounte Murray led Atlanta with 28 points on 11-of-17 shooting, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range. He also had three rebounds, seven assists and a pair of steals.
The Hawks had four additional double figure scorers. Young had 24 points with eight assists; DeAndre Hunter totaled 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting; John Collins had 144 points on 6-of-9 shooting; Clint Capela, in his return, and AJ Griffin both had 12 points apiece.
Meanwhile, Miami — who was still without Kyle Lowry, but returned Caleb Martin and Tyler Herro from injury — struggled with its efficiency for a majority of the afternoon. It shot 48.9 percent — 56.1 percent in the final 24 minutes — with a 26.7 3-point percentage, despite getting a team-high 34 points from Jimmy Butler on 16 shots.
Bam Adebayo added 20 points with 13 boards. Tyler Herro had 15 points, five boards and four assists; Gabe Vincent had 10 points while Victor Oladipo added seven points, six rebounds and a team-high 10 dimes.
A once-26-point lead was cut to seven after Jimmy Butler’s corner 3-pointer midway through the third quarter, when Miami ramped up the defensive activity. The Heat waltzed into the final period with an 11-point deficit, outscoring Atlanta 30-21 in the third quarter.
But the Hawks rallied in the final 12 minutes behind Dejounte Murray, who scored 12 of his 28 points in the final frame. A 7-0 Atlanta run — which came with Adebayo on the bench — put them up 15 with 5:28 left. Butler subsequently scored eight of Miami’s next 12 points, including a fastbreak dunk following an Adebayo block that brought it to five with 2:18 remaining.
But Miami couldn’t muster enough get its first lead, despite eventually cutting the deficit to four.
Monday’s loss ends Miami’s three-game win streak, sending it back to three games above .500. They now travel to New Orleans to face the Pelicans on Wednesday before heading to Dallas to conclude their three-game road trip.