Gordon scores 23, Booker scores 22 and Suns add to Miami's woes with 118-105 win

MIAMI (AP) — Eric Gordon scored 23 points off the bench, Devin Booker scored 22 and the Phoenix Suns added to Miami's woes with a 118-105 win Monday night, handing the Heat their seventh consecutive loss.

Kevin Durant scored 20 and Bradley Beal had 19 for the Suns, who are 8-2 in their last 10 games and swept the Heat for just the second time in the last 17 seasons. The other was 2020-21, when Phoenix made the NBA Finals.

Booker, Durant and Beal each had seven assists for Phoenix, which led by as many as 28 and took a 100-74 lead into the final quarter. The Suns — the NBA's worst team in terms of fourth-quarter point differential — saw the lead get cut to 115-105 with 1:33 left, but Miami didn't score again.

Jimmy Butler scored a game-high 26 points for Miami, which was 24-16 and fifth in the Eastern Conference just two weeks ago. The Heat are now 24-23 and mired in the play-in tournament range, three games behind Indiana in the loss column for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff berth.

Terry Rozier scored 21 and Tyler Herro had 17 for Miami.

It's the first seven-game losing streak for Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, and the team's longest since a seven-game slide late in the 2007-08 season. That team — which finished 15-67 and, to put it charitably, wasn't exactly trying to win a lot of games — had four such streaks of seven or more losses that season.

Before that, the last time a Miami team lost seven straight was the start of the 2003-04 season, when Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem were rookies. That team went on to make the Eastern Conference semifinals.

There have been plenty of teams that lost seven games — or more — in a row and made the playoffs. But none of those has gone on to win a playoff series since Portland in 2016. And no team has ever lost seven consecutive games in what became a championship season; four eventual champions lost six in a row on their way to the title, most recently when Dallas topped Miami in 2011.

UP NEXT

Suns: Visit Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Heat: Host Sacramento on Wednesday.

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