Butler, Miami on verge of sweeping top seed
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Jimmy Butler sent the ball out to Jae Crowder, then started celebrating before his teammate even took the shot.
He knew what was about to happen.
The Miami Heat did it again — and have the Milwaukee Bucks, the No. 1 overall seed in the NBA playoffs, on the brink of leaving the bubble weeks earlier than they anticipated.
Butler scored 17 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter as the Heat outscored the Bucks 40-13 in those final 12 minutes — the biggest fourth-quarter margin in NBA playoff history — and topped Milwaukee 115-100 to take a 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series.
“No, I’m not surprised,” Butler said. “I think everybody else in the world might be. But not us here. Not if you wear a Heat jersey, if you’re one of these coaches, if you’re part of this organization, if you’ve been seeing what we’ve been doing all year long, that doesn’t surprise us.”
No team in NBA history has ever won after trailing 3-0.
“It can be us,” reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “It can definitely be us.”
Bam Adebayo had 20 points and 16 rebounds, and Crowder had 17 points to help the Heat improve to 7-0 in this postseason.
Brook Lopez scored 22 points for Milwaukee, which got 21 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists from Antetokounmpo — who twisted an ankle in the first quarter and appeared to labor at times.
He said he was fine afterward. The Bucks’ spirit, though, has to be hurting. They led by 14 late in the third, and by 12 going into the fourth. Then, disaster: Milwaukee shot 6-for-23 from the field and 0for-10 from 3-point range and was outscored 17-13 by Butler alone.
“They made every play,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “And we didn’t make enough, obviously.”
The Heat pulled off their biggest fourth-quarter playoff comeback ever. They were down 10 going into the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals against the Spurs, the game Ray Allen sent to overtime with a 3pointer with 5.2 seconds left on the way to Miami’s most recent title.
Milwaukee led 87-75 going into the final quarter, up 12 with 12 minutes to go in a game that the Bucks knew they almost certainly had to win to keep any realistic hopes of winning a championship alive.
Miami had other ideas. Tyler Herro opened the fourth with a 3-pointer, Goran Dragic made another 3 about three minutes later to cut the deficit to four, and the Heat were off and running. Butler had the next nine Miami points as the Heat went back on top, and he set Adebayo up for a short basket with 4:20 left to restore a 100-99 lead.
And Butler might have delivered the dagger with a pass; he found Crowder for a left-wing 3pointer with 2:15 left to put Miami up 107-100.
Butler knew it was good — he was running the other way, his arm in the air, before Crowder’s shot even found the inside of the net.
Crowder’s 3 was part of a 17-1 run to end the game.
Milwaukee needed less than five minutes to go on a 21-6 run that put the Bucks up 87-73 late in the third. Lopez and George Hill combined for the first 11 points of that run.
But the fourth was all Miami. “We’re still here in the bubble,” Hill said. “It’s not the first one to win three games. It’s the first one to win four games. We still have basketball to play.”