Shocking! Takeaways from Heat’s series-clinching OT win over top-seeded Bucks
The Miami Heat entered with three opportunities to eliminate the Milwaukee Bucks. The Heat only needed one.
The eighth-seeded Heat rallied from a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit for the second game in a row to escape with an incredible 128-126 series-clinching win over the top-seeded Bucks in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum.
The Heat, even after losing guards Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo to injuries earlier in the series, won the best-of-7 first-round series 4-1 to become only the sixth No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs since the current 16-team NBA playoff format was instituted for the 1983-84 season.
The Heat opens the second round of the playoffs against the New York Knicks on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Madison Square Garden.
“We’ve never been an eight seed where we’ve had an opportunity to win,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We wanted to embrace this opportunity. It’s just been a harrowing two and a half weeks. But our guys earned their ice tonight, for sure.”
The fact that Wednesday’s game even went to overtime was miraculous after the Heat entered the fourth quarter facing a 16-point hole. But the Heat opened the final period on a 27-11 run behind a dominant defensive effort to erase the deficit and tie the score with 1:41 left in regulation.
That’s when the drama began.
It looked like the Heat’s rally would fall short after the Bucks found themselves ahead by four points with 14 seconds on the clock.
But the Heat wouldn’t go away, as guard Gabe Vincent hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit to one with 8.4 seconds remaining.
The Bucks were sloppy on the next possession, as Khris Middleton lost the ball while trying to get it up the court. The play was initially ruled a foul on Heat guard Kyle Lowry, but Spoelstra’s successful challenge forced a jump ball with six seconds remaining because no team was in possession of the ball at the time of the foul call that was later overturned.
The Bucks won the jump ball and Holiday drew the foul with 2.1 seconds remaining. But Holiday made only 1 of 2 free throws to bump Milwaukee’s lead up to two.
That’s when Jimmy Butler made yet another incredible play for the Heat to send the game to overtime, catching a perfectly thrown inbounds lob pass from Vincent at the basket to make a difficult game-tying layup as he fell down to the court with 0.5 second left in regulation. It was reminiscent of Butler’s game-winning alley-oop dunk off a Vincent inbounds pass earlier this season against the Houston Rockets on Feb. 10.
“I had a different variation of it and [Butler] looked at me dead in the eye,” Spoelstra said of the play call at the end of regulation on Wednesday night. “We’ve practiced a variation of that play with a bunch of different guys and I was going to do a different version of it. He just said, ‘No, let me be that guy.’ And I just said, ‘OK, but if we can’t get that pass?’ And he said, ‘I’ll get it. Don’t worry about it.’”
The Heat made the most of its second life, outscoring the Bucks 10-8 in overtime to complete the comeback win after starting the fourth quarter trailing by 16 points. It’s the largest fourth-quarter comeback in a series-clinching game in NBA history.
Butler led the way for the Heat with another eye-opening performance, finishing with 42 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
Vincent contributed 22 points and six assists.
“It just says we’re a resilient group,” Butler said of the Heat’s first-round upset after a shaky regular season. “We stick together through everything. Yeah, I’m sad that Tyler and Vic are not here to celebrate us. But they were still with us in spirit.”
Five takeaways from the Heat’s series-clinching win over the Bucks on Wednesday:
How did Butler follow up his 56-point Game 4 masterpiece? With another incredible effort to send the Heat to the second round.
Butler missed his first field-goal attempt and first two free throws of the game, but remained aggressive in the first quarter to finish the opening period with 11 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting from three-point range.
Butler was quiet in the second quarter, though, totaling just five points on three field goal attempts in the period.
At halftime, Butler had 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field, 1-of-4 shooting on threes and 3-of-6 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds and three assists.
Butler saved his best for the second half, totaling 26 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field in the second half and overtime, including the game-tying layup at the end of regulation.
Butler again led the Heat’s fourth-quarter comeback, scoring 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field while playing the final 7:35 of regulation. He scored two points in overtime.
Butler’s Game 5 capped off his incredible first-round, as he averaged 37.6 points, six rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 59.7 percent from the field and 12 of 27 (44.4 percent) from three-point range in the five-game series.
Butler totaled 98 points in the final two games of the series to eliminate the Bucks. Only three other players (Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Michael Jordan) in NBA history have scored more points than Butler in a two-game spam.
“I’ve said a lot about how I feel about Jimmy. He is us and we are him,” Spoelstra said. “I just respect him so much as being such a unique world-class elite competitor. A lot of guys play the game of basketball in this league, he competes to win.”
Heat center Bam Adebayo’s hamstring injury is bothering him, but he continues to battle through the pain.
Adebayo closed Wednesday’s win with 20 points on 8-of-20 shooting from the field. He had a triple-double by adding 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Adebayo joined LeBron James and Butler as the only Heat players in franchise history with a 20-point triple-double in a playoff game.
The first three quarters were a struggle for Adebayo, as he shot 2 of 8 from the field and grabbed two rebounds. But he closed the game strong, scoring 13 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field and coming away with eight rebounds in the fourth quarter and overtime.
“He just showed up the biggest when we needed it the most and I think that describes him probably the best way,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo.
Ahead of Game 5, Adebayo said he he has received “constant treatment, 24 hours” to make sure he can play in games through his strained left hamstring. He played in Games 4 and 5 despite being on the injury report.
“In the treatment room three, possibly four times a day and just trying to make sure I’m healthy enough to play and keep playing,” Adebayo said Wednesday morning.
But Adebayo is clearly in pain, grabbing his left hamstring at times during Game 5.
Adebayo averaged 17.4 points per game while shooting 46.3 percent from the field in the first-round series, which is down from his regular-season production of 20.4 points per game on 54 percent shooting from the field.
Adebayo struggled to make shots at times in the first round but still found other ways to make an impact, especially on the defensive end. The Heat outscored the Bucks by 7.8 points per 100 possessions with Adebayo on the court in the series.
The Heat’s defense was sensational during its fourth-quarter comeback.
The Bucks’ offense was firing on all cylinders through the first three quarters, entering the fourth quarter with 102 points on 56.1 percent shooting from the field and 12 of 25 (48 percent) shooting from three-point range. The only blemish was that Milwaukee shot just 16 of 25 (64 percent) from the foul line through three quarters.
But the Heat’s defense turned it up a notch in the fourth quarter, limiting the Bucks to 16 points on 3-of-19 (15.8 percent) shooting from the field and forcing six turnovers in the period.
Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with 38 points, but the Heat found a way to slow him down late in the game. Antetokounmpo, who missed Games 2 and 3 of the series with a back injury, scored just four points on 1-of-9 shooting from the field in the fourth quarter.
After totaling 42 paint points in the first three quarters, the Bucks scored just two points in the paint in the final quarter.
“Just a lot of tough plays,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s late-game defense on Wednesday.
The Heat has a few days off before the second round starts.
The Heat will open the second round of the playoffs at 1 p.m. Sunday on ABC against the Knicks.
The teams will play Sunday and Tuesday in New York, then take a break before resuming the series with Game 3 in Miami next Saturday.
Game 4 would be on Monday, May 8, in Miami.
Game 5, if needed, would be in New York on May 10, with Game 6 in Miami on May 12. Game 7, if needed, would be on Monday, May 15 in New York.
The Heat and Knicks have a history.
With Wednesday’s victory in Cleveland, the fifth-seeded Knicks won their first-round playoff series against the fourth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers 4-1.
The Heat lost the regular-season series against the Knicks 3-1.
The upcoming Heat-Knicks series brings back memories of the past when their rivalry was formed. The Heat and Knicks have met before in five different postseasons, including in four straight years in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 and then 2012 during Miami’s Big 3 era.
The Heat has won two of its first five playoff series against the Knicks.
“It’s always good for the league when there’s a Heat-Knicks playoff series,” Spoelstra said.
This story was originally published April 26, 2023 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Shocking! Takeaways from Heat’s series-clinching OT win over top-seeded Bucks."
