Heat get 2 wins doing it their way

Stopping Giannis took the whole team, but the whole team did

This is how it ended. Tie game. Jimmy Butler on the foul line. No time left. No players on the foul line with him. No one in the stands, of course.

The foul shot hit the front rim.

Bounce.

Bounce.

And in.

The Heat blew a six-point lead with under 20 seconds to play and Butler made the most lonesome foul shot you can have. He made two, actually, with the second one for fun as the Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks , 116-114 t o go up 2-0 in this playoff series.

Fun? Dramatic? Surprising? It was all that, especially in the end Wednesday night. The Heat had it won, looked to be losing it when Khris Middleton made three foul shots with 4.4 seconds left on a cheapie foul by Goran Dragic.

And then Butler was the benefit of an equally light foul call. The refereeing to end the game became the story, unfortunately. It should be the Heat surprising everyone. It should be, too, how they’ve contained Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Giannis is a favorite for this season’s Most Valuable Player Award after already winning Defensive Player of the Year. He’s the Greek Freak, a taller LeBron James and thicker Anthony Davis. But is this all he is in this series?

What have the Miami Heat done to the guy who makes Milwaukee the best team in the East?

Giannis wasn’t dominant again in Game 2. The by-far best player in this playoff series hasn’t been the best player as the Heat have taken an impressive 2-0 lead.

Even his seemingly impressive 29-point, 14-rebound performance this game came with issues to it. He didn’t take over the night, primarily. He had a big turnover and missed two foul shots in the final minutes when the Bucks needed everything.

It can’t continue for a full series — can it? — the Heat’s defensive scheme saying they’ll let anyone else beat

them but Giannis — if anyone else can. And so far they can’t.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra hasn’t allowed it to be a showcase for Giannis by setting up a wall whenever he gets the ball. He’s made this series Heat versus Bucks, the full rosters counting, and that’s a series the Heat can win.

Dragic, once again, put up a big game with 23 points. Tyler Herro didn’t look like a rookie, making big second-half shots and ending with. But the larger point is the Heat had seven players in double figures.

Everyone mattered in every way. Jimmy Butler didn’t put up 40 points like in Game 1. He did, however, seemingly ask to take the point defender on Giannis in the final minutes, leading to an expensive miss.

There’s usually a few players waiting for him, though. Remember the Jordan Rules from the ’90s Detroit Pistons that kept him at bay for a while? These are the Giannis Rules created by Spoelstra.

The first rule is this: He won’t beat us alone. Any combinations of other Bucks players can beat you – and they just might coming up.

It’s easy to scheme. It’s difficult to do. And the Heat are doing it.

Sure, right about here in the column you’re thinking what everyone is thinking this morning. There’s still a long way to go in this series. So let me say this before going any further: There’s still a long way to go.

But here’s the mindset you must have carried through this series so far if you’re Milwaukee.

Game 1 loss: Don’t panic.

Game 2 loss: Don’t panic. Game 3: Panic.

These first two games couldn’t have gone better for the Heat. The looked stronger. They looked faster. They looked schematically more organized.

They simply looked better than the top seed in the Eastern Conference. This isn’t some random result that has them up two games. It’s on full merit.

There was a whimsical early moment when Jimmy Butler saw Dwyane Wade in the virtual crowd. He went up and tried to fist-bump him. Wade, Wade’s image, Wade’s avatar – whatever that projection of Wade is – couldn’t see Butler from outside the bubble.

Everyone else could see Butler, though. They were looking for him after the 40 points he scored in the first game. What they saw, though was more of Dragic, Kelly Olynyk and Duncan Robinson early on. They pushed the Heat to a double-digit lead in through much of the first half.

At halftime, when the Heat’s earlier 13-point lead was whittled to six, there was still some beguiling stats about Milwaukee. The 66 points the Heat scored were the most allowed by Milwaukee in a playoff game since 1980.

“Our defense is getting a little better each quarter,’’ Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer said after the third quarter on ESPN.

That’s one obvious change as the series moves on. But then there’s always questions after nights of consequence like these.

The fallout from the first game had Giannis upset being asked why he didn’t guard Butler when the Heat forward was putting up 40 points. It was a valid question if you’re the league’s Defensive Player of the Year.

The question now is more direct: Can the Heat ride this 2-0 lead to win the series?

Dave Hyde