How Jimmy Butler took control of Game 1, and takeaways from Heat’s win over Bucks
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 115-104 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday in the second round of the playoffs at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami holds a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 series:
Even with reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo on the court, Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler was the best player in Monday’s game.
Butler finished with a playoff career-high 40 points on 13-of-20 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting on threes, four rebounds and two assists in 36 minutes. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are the only two other Heat players to score 40 or more points in a playoff game in franchise history.
Butler was especially dominant in the second half, scoring 27 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field, 2-of-2 shooting on threes and 7-of-7 shooting at the foul line. He was a plus-14 in 19 second-half minutes.
But it’s Butler’s fourth quarter that will get most of the attention, as he scored 15 of Miami’s 23 points in the final period. He made six of his eight shots in the quarter.
“For me, it’s my teammates,” Butler said of what changed for him in the fourth quarter. “[Andre Iguodala] is coming to tell me, ‘Yo win the game.’ Goran [Dragic], ‘Win the game.’ Duncan [Robinson], ‘Win the game.’ And it’s not about just scoring, it’s about guarding, it’s about making the right play, getting the 50-50 ball. That’s all part of winning the game. I feel like I took it up a level in the fourth quarter.
“I told my teammates that I probably wasn’t going to pass the ball. I made a couple shots and they said, ‘That’s fine with me.’”
With the Bucks ahead by one point with 6:04 to play, Butler scored nine of the Heat’s next 11 points to lead Miami on an 11-2 run and take control of the game. At the end of that spurt, Miami led by eight with 2:19 to play.
“I’ve learned, but I’ve watched so many great players,” Butler said of playing as a closer. “It’s great to have D-Wade in my corner, I’m telling you. He’s always in my phone telling me about the game, what to look for. He has been a huge help. He’s the first person to text me at night whenever I get back to the locker room. I’m learning, I’ve been learning and I will continue to learn.”
Even though the Bucks were the best at protecting the paint (held opponents to an NBA-low 38.7 paint points per game) in the regular season, Butler stuck to his attack-first style. He forced his way into the paint and drew fouls to finish 12 of 13 from the free-throw line.
Butler shot 8 of 14 from inside the paint in Game 1 to help the Heat finish with 42 paint points on 21-of-43 shooting against Milwaukee’s elite interior defense.
What made Butler unstoppable down the stretch in Game 1, though, was his jumper. He really struggled to make outside shots in the regular season, making just 28.8 percent of his non-paint shots.
But on Monday, Butler was 3 of 4 on mid-range shots and 2 of 2 on threes to finish 5-of-6 on shots from outside of the paint. He’s 11 of 21 (52.4 percent) on non-paint shots in the playoffs, with the help of incredible 6-of-9 shooting on threes since the postseason began.
“It’s a stars’ league. And that’s why we sought him out so aggressively,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Butler. “But, yeah, he just fits everything about us, our fabric, who we are. That’s make or miss. But everybody feels comfortable when he’s making those decisions. And he happened to score tonight.”
Fellow Heat All-Star Bam Adebayo said of Butler: “He tries to say I’m the reason why we go. At the end of the day, I always say he’s the one, so we bicker back and forth about it, but I believe he’s the reason why we’re winning and I’m just going to keep honing that in on him. He’s going to keep saying it’s me. I’m going to keep saying it’s him, so we’re going to figure it out at the end of the day. Somebody’s going to take it.”
The Bucks, which finished with the league’s top defensive rating in the regular season, struggled to contain the Heat’s offense late in the game. But Miami’s defense got better as the game went on, and Antetokounmpo never got going.
Miami limited a Bucks offense that averaged an NBA-high 118.7 points per game in the regular season to 104 points on 49.3 percent shooting in Game 1.
After a 40-point first quarter, Milwaukee scored 64 points on 43.1 percent shooting over the final three quarters.
A lot of that success came because the Heat was effective in keeping the Bucks out of the paint. Milwaukee, which averaged 49.3 paint points in the regular season, scored a season-low 24 paint points Monday.
In order to pull that off, the Heat needed to limit Antetokounmpo’s shots around the rim.
Antetokounmpo, who averaged an NBA-high 17.5 paint points per game in the regular season, finished Game 1 with six paint points on 3-of-6 shooting. It’s only the fifth time this season he has finished a game with six or fewer paint points.
In Monday’s loss, Antetokounmpo recorded 18 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting on threes, 10 rebounds and nine assists in 37 minutes.
The Heat threw multiple defenders at Antetokounmpo whenever he had the ball and effectively walled off the paint. Adebayo, as expected, spent a lot of time defending the Bucks’ superstar, but Jae Crowder, Andre Iguodala and Butler also spent time guarding him.
Whenever Antetokounmpo did get in the paint, Miami did a good job of making him earn his points at the foul line. Antetokounmpo shot just 4 of 12 on free throws and also committed six turnovers Monday.
“Just trying to slow him down,” Adebayo said of defending the Bucks’ star, “make sure we can limit his transition buckets because when he gets downhill, he’s a problem for people. So just trying to limit him to half court, so we can shrink the court a little bit.”
With the Heat concentrated on protecting the paint, the Bucks did have success from three-point range. Milwaukee shot 16 of 35 from deep, and All-Star Khris Middleton made four of them to finish with a team-high 28 points.
The Bucks actually outscored the Heat 48-36 from behind the three-point line. Miami shot 12 of 31 on threes, and it’s only the fourth game Milwaukee has lost this season when its opponent has hit 12 or fewer threes.
“Get points in transition, make everything tough for [Antetokounmpo] in the paint and everybody else,” Butler said of the Heat’s defensive plan. “I think we got to do a better job of getting to their shooters and making them put it on the floor.”
Part of the reason the Heat was able to overcome that? Miami scored 28 points on 19 Milwaukee turnovers, and the Bucks shot just 14 of 26 from the foul line.
Goran Dragic has played his best basketball of the season in the playoffs.
After averaging a team-high 22.8 points while shooting 48 percent from the field and 41.4 percent shooting on threes, four rebounds and five assists in Miami’s first-round sweep, Dragic turned in another standout performance to begin the second round.
The 34-year-old guard finished Game 1 with 27 points on 9-of-15 shooting. He scored 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the first half.
While Dragic played most of the season as the Heat’s sixth man, he has handled the move to the starting lineup well in the playoffs. He has averaged 23.6 points on 50 percent shooting from the field and 41.2 percent shooting on threes, 4.4 rebounds and five assists in the postseason, and the Heat has outscored its opponent by 52 points in his 170 playoff minutes.
“Goran has won at a very high level before,” Butler said. “He’s a proven winner, he’s a leader of this team and we need him to play like that. He understands that, but I think I follow his lead, Bam follows his lead. We got a team full of leaders. Any given night, it can be anybody. But one thing he always does, he plays hard on every single possession. He never gives up on plays and we follow suit.”
Dragic said earlier this season that he feels he can “still play three or four years easy,” and it certainly looks that way. One of Miami’s top priorities this offseason will be to re-sign Dragic, who is in the fifth and final season of the $85 million deal he signed in the summer of 2015 and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason.
Adebayo’s night started with disappointing news, as he learned just before tip-off that he was not the winner of the NBA’s Most Improved Player award. But it didn’t stop him from leaving his fingerprints all over Game 1.
Adebayo, who also spent time defending Antetokounmpo, finished Monday’s win with 12 points, 17 rebounds, six assists and two steals in 38 minutes. He recorded a plus/minus of plus-10.
“There are different aspects and ways you can impact winning,” Spoelstra said. “Unfortunately in today’s day and age everybody just looks for that final number on the box score. Bam just does a lot of winning things and we needed every one of those 17 rebounds tonight.”
With Adebayo leading the way, Miami outrebounded Milwaukee 46-34. The Bucks averaged a league-high 51.7 rebounds in the regular season, and Monday’s 34 boards is a season-low.
“I watched film with [Udonis Haslem] a little bit and we were saying how I can get easy rebounds,” Adebayo said. “So I’ve just been keeping that in my mind and the last game I had 19. I had 17 today, so I’m just trying to keep this going.”
As for the Most Improved Player award, the NBA announced that New Orleans Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram was the recipient of the honor just minutes before the start of Game 1. Adebayo finished second in the voting, with Ingram earning 42 first-place votes and Adebayo earning 38 first-place votes.
“It’s unfortunate. But I don’t think he really cares,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo finishing second for the award. “He wants to win at a high level. That’s his biggest priority and one of the reasons why we love him. But it would have been nice. That definitely would have been cool for him to be recognized for that.”
In the first round, rookie guard Kendrick Nunn was left out of the Heat’s rotation. In Game 1 of the second round, forward Derrick Jones Jr. was the one left out.
As the Heat did for most of the first round, it used a nine-man rotation Monday. The five-man starting lineup of Dragic, Duncan Robinson, Butler, Crowder and Adebayo, and a bench rotation of Tyler Herro, Andre Iguodala, Kelly Olynyk and Nunn.
Jones, who played in each of the Heat’s four first-round games as a reserve, did not play in Game 1 of the second round.
With the Bucks allowing the most three-point attempts in the NBA, Spoelstra chose the better three-point shooter in replacing Jones with Nunn in Monday’s rotation.
Nunn finished with six points on 3-of-9 shooting in 16 minutes.
Herro again played the most minutes of any Heat reserve, as he finished Game 1 with 11 points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes in 29 minutes. He made two important threes in the fourth quarter.
The Heat, with the help of a week off after completing a first-round sweep of the Indiana Pacers last Monday, entered the second round with its full rotation available. The Bucks were without starting guard Eric Bledsoe because of a strained right hamstring.
Bonus: Late Monday night, the NBA announced more game times for the Heat-Bucks series. Game 2 is Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN, Game 3 is Friday at 6:30 p.m. on TNT, Game 4 is Sunday at 3:30 p.m. on ABC, Game 5 (if necessary) is Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m. on TNT, Game 6 (if necessary) is Sept. 10 with the time still to be determined on ESPN, and Game 7 (if necessary) is Sept. 12 with the time still to be determined on TNT.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 11:54 PM.
