BUTLER TURNS ON HEAT’S HUGE RALLY
Jimmy Butler went forehead-to-forehead with the Boston Celtics and came away with another decisive victory.
Butler scored 27 points, hitting back-to-back buckets to tie the game and give Miami the lead, and the eighth-seeded Heat left Boston with a 111-105 victory Friday night and a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
Butler added eight rebounds and six assists. When Grant Williams started jawing with the Miami star — with both players drawing technical fouls for the double head-butt — Butler stared down Williams and the Heat refused to relent.
“I love that gnarly version of Jimmy,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But you get that regardless. I think now people are just paying more attention . ... Jimmy is just a real competitor.”
Bam Adebayo had 22 points, 17 rebounds and nine assists, and Caleb Martin came off the bench to score 25 points for Miami, which returns home with a chance to sweep and become just the second No. 8 seed to reach the NBA Finals. Game 3 is Sunday night. Jayson Tatum had 34 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists for Boston. But the Celtics star went 0 for 3 with two turnovers in the fourth quarter, when Boston blew an 89-77 lead en route to a second home loss in three nights. Jaylen Brown scored 16 points on 7-for-23 shooting; he went 1 for 5 with a turnover in the final quarter, when Miami outscored Boston 36-22.
“We’ve got some dogs, and I love it. I love every bit of it,” Butler said on the postgame TV broadcast. “Guys never quit. We never give up. We love playing with one another. We’ve got so much faith and trust in one another.”
The Celtics led by 11 in the third quarter and made it a dozen early in the fourth. It was a 96-87 Boston lead when Butler scored and was fouled by Williams; the two players leaned into each other — drawing the technicals — before Butler hit the ensuing free throw.
“Some healthy competition. I ain’t going to lie to you. Healthy competition. And I love it. I’m always here to compete. I like to talk, at times,” Butler said. “As long as we get the win, I’m good with it.”
After Tatum missed from long distance — one of three missed 3s in the fourth quarter — Butler drove to the basket to make it a fourpoint Boston lead. Miami trailed 98-96 when Butler was called for an offensive foul, kicking Marcus Smart after landing on a missed 3pointer.
Spoelstra challenged, but lost.
Butler responded. He made a 17-footer to tie it 100-all, and then a short fadeaway to give Miami the lead. After Max Strus made one of two free throws, Adebayo scored on a putback dunk to make it 105-100 with less than a minute to play.
Lakers need one
Although the Lakers’ late-season transformation is one of this NBA season’s best stories, LeBron James and his teammates finally appear to be running out of steam in the Western Conference finals.
They’ve also finally run into an opponent capable of making sure this story doesn’t have a completely happy ending.
After looking weary and mistake-prone in Denver during their first back-toback losses in over two months, the Lakers face a must-win Game 3 today.
Los Angeles has been on a prolonged roll ever since the trade deadline, going 2712 while surging into the playoff picture, winning a play-in game and knocking out two higher-seeded opponents in six games. But that roll finally has been slowed by Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the respect-hungry Nuggets, whose superior late-game play was the reason they’re up 2-0.
“This is not the NCAA Tournament,” James said. “It’s the first team to four wins. We have an opportunity to go home and play great basketball and hold serve. Until a team beats you four times, you always have an opportunity to come out of it. So that’s the confidence that we should have. I know it’s going to be a tough hill to climb up, but we still have an opportunity to play the best basketball of the series in Game 3.”
The Lakers insist they’re not as tired as they looked for stretches of both games in Denver, when they settled for too many jumpers, ran the court less effectively and lost a fraction of their defensive intensity. James and Anthony Davis both say the fatigue of this relentless twomonth sprint toward title contention isn’t finally too much for a team that altered half of its roster just three months ago.