How the Heat stacks up against possible opponents in East finals
The Heat will need to wait a bit longer to learn its opponent in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, forcing their Eastern Conference semifinal to a Game 7 at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Boston.
The winner of that game will meet the Heat in the conference finals, beginning at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at FTX Arena.
Regardless of Sunday’s winner, the Heat will be facing its most difficult challenge of the postseason. Both are highly skilled teams with healthy superstars and a defensive bent similar to the Heat’s.
Though Boston will play host to Game 7, keep in mind that Milwaukee already has won twice there in this series.
A quick refresher on the Heat/Bucks recent history:
Miami eliminated heavily favored Milwaukee in five games of a conference semifinals in the Orlando bubble in 2020, leaving the Bucks wondering what they needed to do to build a championship team around Giannis Antetokounmpo. They traded for point guard Jrue Holiday months later.
Then the Bucks bounced the Heat from last year’s playoffs with a four-game sweep in the first round. Milwaukee went on to win the championship, and the Heat — realizing it needed to augment to roster — added P.J. Tucker and Kyle Lowry last summer.
This season, the Heat blew out the visiting Bucks on opening night, 137-95, behind 27 from
Tyler Herro.
Milwaukee won the next game 124-102 in Milwaukee on Dec. 4 despite 25 points from
Max Strus.
Miami won the next meeting 113-104 on Dec. 8 in Miami behind 28 from Caleb Martin.
Milwaukee won the final meeting 120-119 on March 2 in Wisconsin behind 28 points from Antetokounmpo and despite 30 from Herro.
Antetokounmpo averaged 19.3 points and 11.0 rebounds in the season series against the Heat while shooting just 38.6 percent from the field.
Holiday averaged a team-high 22.7 points and 7.3 assists against the
Heat.
And according to
ESPN, Milwaukee is expected to get back Khris Middleton in the East finals if the Bucks make it; the veteran scorer has been out since sustaining a knee injury in Game 2 of the first round. He averaged 20.1 points this season and 19.5 against the Heat.
Herro led the Heat in scoring against the Bucks this season, averaging 20.3. Lowry, whose status for the start of the series is dubious because of a hamstring injury, led Miami in assists (8.7) in the season series.
Jimmy Butler appeared in only two of the four games, averaging
13.5 points on 8-for-24 shooting.
Bam Adebayo averaged 19.5 points and 12.5 rebounds in two games against Milwaukee.
The Heat and Celtics played three times this season, with Boston winning the first two (95-78 on Nov. 4 in Miami and 122-92 on Jan. 31 in Boston) and losing a March 30 meeting in Boston, 106-98.
Butler averaged 22 points and Strus 20.5 against Boston, while Adebayo averaged 14 points and 8.0 rebounds.
Herro struggled against the Celtics, averaging
10.3 points on 13-for-43 shooting (30.2 percent).
Boston guard Jaylen Brown was very good against the Heat, averaging 24.7 points and hitting 11 of 23 three-pointers.
Jayson Tatum averaged 17.7 points against the Heat but hit only 5 of 17 three-pointers.
Tatum scored 46 points in Boston’s Game 6 win at Milwaukee on Friday.
The Celtics have the NBA’s best record since Jan. 1.
THIS AND THAT
After Game 6, multiple Heat veterans expressed appreciation for Strus and Gabe Vincent, who have evolved from G League players to rotation pieces on a championship contender.
“They’re not scared of anybody, of any task at any point in the game,” Butler said. “It always helps to have those guys on your side and they are everything that the Miami Heat organization is about.
“They play hard, they’re not selfish in the least bit. And more than anything, they just want to win. Tell them to do something, they’re going to do it and never complain because they know it’s toward winning.”
Butler then looked at Strus and cracked: “Maybe you should have gotten the max contract.”
Tucker said Strus “has gotten so much better from the time we started this year. He’s definitely our most improved. Like he has really stepped up to be a guy that we count on not only just to make shots, but just to be aggressive.
“Even days when he’s not making shots, him being aggressive, teams have to respect it and be up on him. And he’s strong enough and tall enough to be able to guard . ... He loves the challenge. Just to see him step up in all these big moments, it’s pretty special.”
Tucker, who won an NBA championship with the Bucks last season, described this season as “a crazy year, but it’s been a fun year just because we had so much adversity all year. Missing guys for a number of games, playing with G League players coming up. We had so many lineups and so many things.
“And being able to withstand and be a topthree team in the East all year. To now get to this point… was my reason for coming here. This is the reason I came to the Heat.”
Games 3 and 4 of the East finals will air on ABC, with the other games on ESPN, and Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson calling all the games. Tipoff is just after 8:30 for all the games.
Mike Greenberg, Stephen A. Smith, Jalen Rose and Michael Wilbon host the pregame shows (an hour for the ESPN games; a half hour for the ABC games) from the arena. The draft lottery will precede Game 1 on Tuesday.
AABarry Jackson: 305-376-3491, @flasportsbuzz
sure, whether it’s on those who felt the weight of 26 years of failure or on a highly paid player worried he’s not living up to his contract.
On Friday, there was validation for the stars and for highly paid goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, for interim coach Andrew Brunette and the way he has thrived in his unusual circumstances, and for general manager Bill Zito, who traded away basically every future first-round pick he could to chase a Stanley Cup this season.
“You don’t think about it, but it’s there,” Barkov said of the burden he faced on a team that hadn’t won a playoff series since 1996. “It’s not there anymore.”
It was obvious in the smile Barkov broke out when he scored a goahead goal with less than six minutes left in the third period in Washington. If the Panthers could hold on for the final 5:43, Barkov would be the hero because he fired a potential serieswinning goal into the back of the net — off a feed from versatile All-Star forward Claude Giroux — to give Florida its first lead of the game. He celebrated by raising his hands above his head and smiling like he’d never smiled in a rink before — mouth wide open, almost on the verge of laughter.
He was also on the ice when Giroux tied the score six minutes earlier and on the ice again when forward Carter Verhaeghe scored with 2:46 gone in overtime to end the game.
In the series, Barkov led the Panthers with 22 shots on goal and was tied for the best plus-minus among forwards, scoring two goals and adding four assists. Huberdeau, meanwhile, tallied three points and was one of Florida’s best two-way forwards in the series, potentially saving a goal in Game 3. On the defensive end, Ekblad’s five points were fourth most on the team and he played the entire series after missing the final six weeks of the regular season with a knee injury, while Weegar overcame a turnover-plagued start to the series to finish as one of the Panthers’ two most productive possession-controlling defensemen.
“They put a lot of pressure on themselves — probably too much,” Brunette said. “They were able to find a way to pull through.”