Short-handed Warriors get past frustrated Heat

MIAMI (AP) — Jimmy Butler and Udonis Haslem were shouting at each other, fingers were pointed in various directions, some Miami players were trying to play peacemaker and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra slammed a clipboard to the floor in frustration.

And that wasn't the evening's low point for the Heat.

The short-handed Golden State Warriors made things even worse for Miami when the final buzzer sounded — and suddenly, Miami's grip on the top spot in the Eastern Conference is tenuous at best.

Jordan Poole scored 30 points to continue his hot scoring run, plus had a career-best nine assists, and the Warriors scored the first 19 points of the second half on the way to beating the frustrated Heat 118-104 on Wednesday night.

“Our overall competitive fire and execution at both ends ... was excellent," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.

Damion Lee, Jonathan Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins each scored 22 points for the Warriors, who got 11 points from Gary Payton II and 16 rebounds from Kevon Looney.

The Warriors were already without Stephen Curry because of a sprained left foot and Andre Iguodala with low back tightness, plus gave Draymond Green, Otto Porter Jr. and Klay Thompson the night off for injury management.

Golden State made that decision based on medical rationale and a desire to minimize the chance of injury going into the playoffs — not because of a bad loss at Orlando on Tuesday.

They had more than enough.

The Heat, they just had problems.

Kyle Lowry scored 26 points, Bam Adebayo had 25, Butler finished with 20 and Duncan Robinson had 13. Miami shook off the huge Warriors run to start the second half — and a huge dust-up on its bench during a timeout — to lead briefly in the fourth, then let the game slip away and had its lead