Takeaways from Heat’s record-setting playoff performance, as Miami takes 2-0 series lead
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 109-100 win over the Indiana Pacers on Thursday in the first round of the playoffs at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami holds a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series:
Duncan Robinson’s first NBA playoff game wasn’t great. But he made up for it two days later, and the Heat set a new playoff record because of it.
The Heat’s sharpshooter finished Thursday’s Game 2 with a game-high 24 points on just eight shots. Robinson shot 7 of 8 on threes and 3 of 3 from the foul line.
Robinson’s Game 2 stat line came after he scored just six points on 2-of-8 shooting on threes in 24 minutes in Game 1.
“I felt like I was kind of just going through the motions out there in Game 1,” Robinson said. “I wasn’t as aggressive as I should’ve been. I just felt a better rhythm in this one for whatever reason, but that can’t be the case for me. I’ve got to kind of assert myself and not just have the game necessarily come to me, but be more aggressive.”
Robinson noted that a few of the Heat’s assistant coaches “basically told me I wasn’t there Game 1, so I needed to assert myself in this one.”
Robinson’s first half on Thursday was pretty perfect, as he entered the break with 15 points on 4-of-4 shooting on threes and 3-of-3 shooting from the free-throw line. The 6-7 forward, who went undrafted in 2018, made his first six three-point shot attempts of the game before missing one.
“I think I speak for everybody when I say that we’re all happy for Duncan,” Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler said. “He did what he has always done for us all year. We know that he’s going to continually do that. He’s a huge part of what we’re trying to do.”
There was Heat history made Thursday thanks to Robinson’s performance.
Robinson tied the franchise record for the most made threes in a playoff game by a single player with seven. Mike Miller (in Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals) and Damon Jones (in Game 1 of a 2005 first-round series) also made seven threes in a postseason game as a member of the Heat.
Miami also set a new franchise record for the most made threes in a playoff game, shooting 18 of 35 from deep in Game 2 as a team. The previous mark was 16 made threes in a Game 3 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the 2018 playoffs.
Thursday’s 18-of-35 display from three-point range also went down as only the eighth time in NBA history a team has made 18 or more threes on 35 or fewer three-point attempts in a postseason game.
“Obviously, we do have a lot of shooting on this team and it’s pretty good seeing once everybody is locked in and the ball goes in, it’s pretty awesome to be a part of,” said Heat forward Jae Crowder, who made two threes of his own Thursday to finish with 10 points, eight rebounds and three assists. “This is one of the top shooting teams I’ve ever been a part of, obviously. And once we got it going, it’s hard to stop us.”
The Pacers’ defense has made Robinson a top priority, but the Heat was able to take advantage of a few Indiana miscues to find Robinson for open shots. Miami caught Robinson’s defender helping off of him a few times, as the Pacers worked to protect the paint in Game 2.
With Indiana packing the paint, most of Miami’s threes came off drive-and-kicks and players making the extra pass Thursday. In total, 16 of the Heat’s 18 made threes came off assists.
“It was better in the second half,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Heat’s ball movement. “In the first half, we had some turnovers where those plays might have been there with an easier play. But in the second half, guys did a great job of finding each other and, fortunately, we were able to make some of those.”
But Robinson wasn’t the only one making threes. All of a sudden, Butler has turned into a threat from deep.
Butler finished Thursday’s win with 18 points on 5-of-13 shooting, seven rebounds, six assists and two steals in 38 minutes. But the most interesting part of Butler’s Game 2 stat line? The fact that he went 2 of 3 on threes.
After making two important threes in the final 3:30 of Game 1, Butler is now 4 of 5 on threes in the first two games of the series.
This shouldn’t be that surprising, considering the five-time All-Star has proven to be a solid three-point shooter at certain points of his career. But that part of Butler’s game has almost been nonexistent this season, as he shot just 29 of 119 (24.4 percent) on threes during the regular season — the fewest threes he has attempted in a season since the first two seasons of his NBA career and the fewest threes he has made in a season since his rookie year.
Butler is 3 of 3 on pull-up threes over the first two games of the series. He made 7 of his 38 pull-up threes during the regular season.
In his first two playoff games with the Heat, Butler has averaged 23 points on 46.4 percent shooting, five rebounds, five assists, three steals and a block. Miami has outscored Indiana by 25 points with its max player on the court in the first two games of the series.
Some say it’s not about who starts, but who finishes. Well, the Heat has used the same lineup to close the first two games of the playoffs.
The lineup of Goran Dragic, Tyler Herro, Butler, Andre Iguodala and Bam Adebayo was not used for a single second during the regular season. But it has been used in important spots to start the playoffs.
The Dragic-Herro-Butler-Iguodala-Adebayo combination played the final 7:57 in Game 1 and it played the final 7:45 in Game 2.
This five-man group finished as a plus-10 in Game 1, turning a two-point lead into a 12-point win. The lineup was a plus-1 in Game 2, maintaining Miami’s comfortable lead down the stretch.
The Dragic-Herro-Butler-Iguodala-Adebayo look is a plus-11 in 16 minutes together through the first two playoff games. It helps that Miami is 6 of 11 on threes with this group on the court.
“We have to be open to any kind of lineup that will work,” Spoelstra said. “Obviously, that lineup has been able to close the last two games. Defensively, they’ve been good. Offensively, we’ve been able to keep it simple and get it to either Goran or Jimmy to make the plays and you trust that they’re going to get you something good, a clean look. Then we’ll see if that remains to be a successful lineup the next game. Who knows. But we have a lot of guys that you can slot in there, with Jae and Duncan and the list goes on. Playoff basketball, it can change from one game to another.”
Dragic again was a force late in the game Thursday, with 16 of his 20 points coming in the second half. The veteran guard scored 21 of his 24 points in the second half in Game 1.
The Adebayo-Butler-Iguodala pairing is also intriguing. That trio has worked well together to begin the postseason, as it’s a plus-14 in 25 minutes together during the first two games of the series.
It’s also worth noting that rookie guard Kendrick Nunn did not play for the second consecutive game. The four active Heat players who did not play in Game 2 were Nunn, Meyers Leonard, Solomon Hill and Udonis Haslem.
But all things considered, the Heat did not play a perfect game on Thursday.
Let’s go over some of the things that didn’t go well for the Heat in Game 2:
1. Adebayo battled foul trouble early in the game and did not score his first points until there was 6:24 remaining in the third quarter. The Heat’s All-Star center still found a way to make an impact, especially defensively, with seven points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals in 32 minutes. He finished Game 2 with a team-best plus/minus of plus-19.
“If there’s ever a game where a stat line doesn’t indicate how much somebody impacted winning, that would be the stat line of Bam,” Spoelstra said. “His minutes were so productive when he was out there, particularly on the defensive end. But what we’re doing offensively, he’s just allowing us to run offense where it’s not necessarily leading to him scoring.”
2. The Heat shot just 19 of 28 from the foul line. That’s just 67.9 percent. As a team, Miami shot just 78.3 percent from the free-throw line in the regular season.
3. The Pacers scored 22 points off 17 Heat turnovers. Miami got better as the game went on in this department, finishing with seven second-half turnovers after committing 10 turnovers in the first half.
Victor Oladipo led the Pacers with 22 points. Indiana forward T.J. Warren finished with 14 points on 7-of-15 shooting and guard Malcolm Brogdon finished with 17 points, five rebounds and nine assists.
If history is any indication, the Heat is on track to win its first playoff series since 2016. But the Pacers say otherwise.
After winning the first two games of its series against Indiana, Miami is in a very good spot. The Heat owns a perfect 14-0 all-time record in playoff series that it has taken a 2-0 lead in.
“There’s obviously a huge difference between being 1-1 in a series and 2-0, so we wanted to just come out with a really heightened sense of urgency and I thought we did that,” Robinson said. “I thought we made some good adjustments. Game 3 is going to require more adjustments and we’ve just got to continue to adapt.”
Also, it just seems like Miami is the better team in this series. The Heat has now won five of its six matchups against the Pacers this season, including three wins in four games against Indiana during the regular season.
“The series is not over, man,” Oladipo said. “Obviously, they’re up 2-0. But we just got to go make adjustments and we’ll give ourselves a better chance to win next game.”
Miami last won a playoff series in 2016, when it eliminated the Charlotte Hornets in the first round.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 6:02 PM.
