Butler, Heat shove Bucks to brink
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat are one win away from the Eastern Conference finals.
And the NBA’S best regular-season team is on the brink of getting swept.
Miami’s stunning run through the NBA playoffs continued Friday, with Butler scoring 30 points and the Heat putting together a dominant fourth-quarter rally to beat the Milwaukee Bucks 115-100.
The Heat outscored Milwaukee 40-13 in the fourth quarter — the biggest such final-quarter margin in NBA playoff history — to take a 3-0 series lead. No NBA team has overcome a 3-0 deficit.
“We’ve been proving people wrong all year,” Miami forward Bam Adebayo said.
Adebayo had 20 points and 16 rebounds and Jae Crowder 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 Giannis Antetokounmpo — who twisted an ankle in the first quarter and appeared to labor at times.
Butler scored 17 of his
points in the fourth, and 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 San Antonio, the game that Ray Allen sent to overtime with a 3-pointer 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 the Bucks knew they 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 Jae Crowder for a leftwing 3-pointer with 2:15 left to put Miami up 107-100.
■ Rockets 112, Lakers 97: James Harden scored 36 points for Houston, which never trailed after the first quarter and forced 17 turnovers that led to 27 points in taking a 1-0 series lead.
Russell Westbrook had 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists and Eric Gordon 23 points for the Rockets, who had just one day of rest after needing seven games to win their first-round series.
Anthony Davis had 25 points and 14 rebounds and Lebron James 20 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for Los Angeles, the West’s top seed, which lost its second straight series opener.