Heat 102, Timberwolves 92
Dwyane Wade finished with 25 points and eight assists as host Miami started fast and held on to get past Minnesota.
Chris Bosh scored 24 points and Luol Deng had 14 as the Heat shot 52.6 percent from the floor and 88.2 percent from the line. Norris Cole chipped in 11 points and Udonis Haslem had eight points and six rebounds off the bench in his season debut.
The Timberwolves never led and finished with a season-low 13 assists in their first game since losing star point guard Ricky Rubio to a severely sprained left ankle. Nikola Pekovic led the way with 19 points and 11 rebounds while Shabazz Muhammad scored all of his 13 points in the second half as Minnesota finished a three-game road trip with a 1-2 mark.
Deng's 3-pointer capped a game-opening 14-2 run and and Miami shot 13-of-18 to take a 29-13 lead after one quarter. Cole's layup with three minutes left in the first half pushed the margin to 20 points before the Timberwolves surged into halftime down 12.
Muhammad's buzzer-beating 3-pointer pulled Minnesota to within 80-69 after three quarters and Kevin Martin's back-to-back triples cut the deficit to 90-86 with 4:28 to go, but Wade and Bosh had all the points for the Heat in a game-ending 12-6 run. Bosh hit a fadeaway and Wade followed up a miss by Martin with a dunk to put Miami up 98-90 with less than two minutes remaining.
GAME NOTEBOOK: Rubio sprained his left ankle in the second quarter of Friday's loss at Orlando. He is out indefinitely but a USA Today report said he could be sidelined for 7-8 weeks. ... Haslem had been out with a quadriceps strain. ... PG Zach LaVine started in Rubio's place, finishing with five points, six rebounds and four assists.