Takeaways From Miami Heat Vs. Washington Wizards

The Miami Heat blew out the Washington Wizards 120-94, bringing their record to 34-41.

They are in control of the ninth seed in the East and just 1.5 games behind the eighth seed.

The win against the 16-59 Wizards (16-59) extended the Heat's win streak to five.

Here are some of the bigger takeaways from the game:

Stars Aligned

The Heat's stars shined bright, taking on the scoring and playmaking load. Bam Adebayo finished with 28 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, a block and a steal. Tyler Herro missed all six of his threes, but still finished with 27 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals.

Adebayo set the tone, scoring 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting in the first quarter alone. He showed a bit of everything, converting on two threes, two middies, four shots in the paint and three in the restricted area, while getting to the free throw line seven times. On top of that, he finished with a superb 5 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Herro again showed he can excel when being run off the three-point line as so many teams have opted to do this season, converting on nine of his 13 twos and having gotten to the free throw line nine times. He finished with a solid 5 to 2 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Layup Line

After the Heat spent the last five games prior to this one making more than half of their threes, they finally cooled against the Wizards, converting on just 28 percent of their long-range shots. This ended up not mattering not only because the Heat made 17 more twos, (38/61 compared to 21/43).

They did a great job finding easy baskets at the rim against the porous Wizards defense, finishing with 12 more made layups on 10 more attempts. Meanwhile, the Wizards finished with a below average amount of twos taken, while taking an 89th percentile amount of threes, converting on just 30 percent of them.

This was the biggest difference between the Heat finishing with a 113.5 offensive rating (about league-average) compared to the Wizards' third-percentile 90.4 offensive rating. The Heat surprisingly dominating the rebound battle, (62 to 39, including 10 more offensive rebounds and twice as many second-chance attempts), definitely was a factor in how they controlled the paint all night.

Stockholm Syndrome

Pelle Larsson had another impactful game as a starter, as he finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists and a steal. Larsson has been stuffing the stat sheet with the increased role, (60 minutes over last two games as starter), having ended last game with 14 points, six rebounds, four assists, two blocks and four steals.

Despite how much he's being left open from three, Larsson finds a way to be a positive on both ends of the floor anyways. When teams help too hard off of him, he counters with strong spacial awareness as a cutter and as a relentless straight-line driver. He contributed his typical rugged brand of defensive playmaking tonight while converting on seven of nine twos, all while finishing with a solid five-to-two assist-to-turnover ratio, mostly playing off the catch.

The Heat's offensive rating was about 37 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor tonight, mostly because of the difference in offensive rebound percentage as well as assist-to-turnover ratio, two categories in which Larsson had strong contributions.

Alexander Toledo is a contributor to Miami Heat On SI and producer/co-host of the Five on the Floor podcast, covering the Heat and NBA. He can be reached at toledoalexander22@gmail.com. Twitter: @tropicalblanket