Butler score, Adebayo block in final seconds push Heat past Celtics
The twists and turns made it feel like more than one game, which it actuallywas, with overtime required.
So the Miami Heat simply provided the needed extra effort, with a Jimmy Butler 3-point play and a Bam Adebayo blocked shot staking the Heat to a 1-0 lead over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals with a 117-114 overtime victory Tuesday.
Awful in the first period, awesome in the second, shaky in the third, feisty in the fourth, the Heat came through when needed most— at the end of overtime.
While the neutral-court setting at Disney’sWide World of Sport complex amid the new coronavirus pandemic was mostly sterile, the emotion was indicative of this stage of the playoffs, a rollercoaster that left theHeat three wins fromthe NBA Finals.
A13-2 run to close the third quarter put the Celtics up 83-71 going into the fourth, with the Heat then forcing overtime on 3-pointers by Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro.
And then Butler and Bam bedlam and the victory.
Goran Dragic led the Heat with 29 points, supported by 22 from Jae Crowder, 20 from Butler, and boxscore-filling efforts from Adebayo and Tyler Herro. Adebayo closed with 18 points, nine assists and six rebounds, Herro with 12 points, a career-high11 rebounds and nine assists.
The Celtics got 30 points from Jayson Tatum, 26 from Marcus Smart, 19 from KembaWalker and17 fromJaylen Brown.
Asked courtside just before the game by ESPN about what itwould take, Butler said, “As ateamwe’ve got todoeverything right, damn near perfect. I think we’re capable of it, but it’s definitely going to take almost perfect game, 48 minutes of it.”
Thiswasn’t that game.
But itwas enough.
Five degrees of Heat night’s game: from
Tuesday
1. End game: Instead of the final ticks of regulation being all or nothing for the Celtics, a foul by theHeat’s Derrick Jones Jr prior to a Celtics inbounds pass with Boston down one with 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter allowed Smart to closed out the regulation scoring at
106-106.
Jones redeemed himself by successfully defending a Tatum 3-point attempt at the regulation buzzer.
From there, a 3-pointer by Crowder with 3:05 left in overtime put theHeat up 111-100, with an Adebayo dunk lifting the lead to 113-110 with 2:08 left.
But a Brownlayupthen closed Boston’s deficit to 113-112 with 1:42 to play, with Walker jumper putting the Celtics up 114-113 wit 23.2 seconds left.
Out of that timeout, the Heat got a driving layup fromButler with12 seconds to play, fouled on the play by Tatum. Butler followed up with a free throw for a 116-114 lead.
An Adebayo block of a Tatum attempt then effectively ended it. dunk
2. Dragic again: Dragic set the tone for the Heat with 16 first-half points. It was the fourth time in10playoff games that he scored 15 or more by halftime. That had Dragic early in the game extending his Heat streak of playoff games with at least 10 points to 28, fourth longest in franchise history.
And he just kept going fromthere. Dragicwas 7 of 10 fromthe field in first half, including 2 of 3 on threes, as part of the Heat’s 9 of 17 from beyond the arc in the first two periods.
3. Smart start: Smart opened 4 of 5 from the field and 2 of 3 on 3-pointers, and just kept going fromthere. He had10 points at the end of the opening period, 13 at halftime.
It’s not as if Spoelstra didn’t see it coming.
“I think everybody probably looks to the 3-point shooting and how he’s improved that part of the game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said pregame. “But it’s all the other areas: the intangibles, the random, unpredictable play, cutting, offensive rebounding, spacing, passing. Those are the things that probably the average fan doesn’t see that really impactwinning and you have to account for that, certainly.”
4. twists: Spoelstra was defensive going into the series when it came to discussing his defensive plans against the Celtics.
It was easy to see why, with an early move back to the zone defense that had been dormant this postseason but that had defined his team’s approach during the regular season and previous seasons.
The Celtics were braced for the twist, with Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse having loaded up on gimmick defenses the previous round.
Defensive
5. First and third struggles: The Heat went down 13 early and ended the opening period down 26-18. It was the Heat’s lowest-scoring first quarter of the postseason, with their 6-of-22 shooting over the first 12 minutes translating into their worst shooting percentage in any period this postseason (at .273). The Heat opened1of 10.
There were similar struggles in the third period, when theHeatwere limited to16 points, their lowest-scoring period of the postseason, shooting 1 of 8 on 3-pointers in the quarter, outscored by12.