Heat sweep Pacers with 99-87 win
Fun, fresh, and versatile, Heat sweep Pacers in signature style
If the Miami Heat were going to do this properly — if they were going to sweep Indiana out of the protective bubble in signature style — then it had to happen like Monday night.
With Bam Adebayo taking the star-for-thenight mantel.
With veteran Goran Dragic and rookie Tyler Herro trading big shots in the fourth quarter.
With defense — real, suffocating defense — as Indiana put up an old-school score.
With a roster of interchangeable names and interchangeable positions interchanging in a way to cover up for Jimmy Butler’s shoulder issues, beat Indiana, 99-87, and finish off this four-game series sweep.
You saw everything the Heat does well being done well this series, right to Monday’s proper end. Depth? The bench outscored Indiana 25-3 in the first half. Versatility? Every night is a new name. Big plays? They got four straight offensive rebounds in a crucial series at the end. Perimeter shooting? That’s a given.
Undermanned and under
whelming Indiana was a good warm-up for the Heat. Or maybe they were the main course. We’ll see. The preseason thought was advancing in the playoffs represented a successful season for this team. Can they overachieve by beating a tested Milwaukee Bucks team?
The rise of any successful team goes through a gauntlet of maybes. Maybe they’re really good enough. Maybe youth is over-rated in today’s NBA. Maybe the Heat can advance deep into the playoffs playing that one-dimensional, perimeter style.
Maybe, just maybe, the Heat can match up with a true Alpha-game star like Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo in this next series. That’s where the season goes next.
Typically, you’d take one megastar over a constellation of lesser talent in the NBA. That’s what the series’ theme will be. Can a nextgeneration cast of 3-point shooters can take down a team built around one player?
On Monday, Adebayo had a big night. He played point-center. He played strong defense. He filled up all the boxes — 14 points, 19 rebounds, six assists and, yeah, six turnovers. No one’s a finished product.
Nunn, too, filled in when Butler went out in the first half with a left shoulder strain (Butler played the second half ). Nunn went from runner-up as rookie of the year to the bench this series.
On Monday, he came off that bench for five points, two assists and two rebounds in eight productive minutes. But then the entire bench produced.
If the mark of a good team is winning in different ways, look at what the Heat did this series:
Game 1. Jimmy Butler hit two 3-point shots in the closing minutes to close out his big game and remind everyone why the Heat signed him.
Game 2: Duncan Robinson made seven of eight 3-point shots to show how the Heat plays in this new NBA generation.
Game 3: Goran Dragic has 24 points, six assists, three steals and was knighted (crowned?) a “steward of the Heat culture,” by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.
Game 4: Adebayo’s turn to shine. “You have to work the game and be open to what the competition brings,” Spoelstra said before Monday’s game as if to explain the Heat methodology.
Every playoffs provides new lessons on where a sport is going. Look around the NBA. You’ve learned Dallas’ Luka Doncic has officially emerge as the next great star. You’ve learned Portland’s Damian Lillard is still the most neglected star.
You’ve learned those long years of tanking by Philadelphia proved as dumb as they looked and letting go of Jimmy Butler for Tobias Harris last offseason was a doubling down on dumb.
And the Heat? What was learned? Well, you learned a fun and versatile team without a honest-to-history franchise star (sorry, Butler isn’t really that guy) can waltz through the first round of the playoffs if they play the right way. And play a mid-level team without one of its best players (Domantas Sabonis was hurt).
Credit the Heat. Their interchanging cast of players kept interchanging shots and plays right to the end when they earned the preferred line this time of year.
Next.