Takeaways from the Heat’s first loss of the 2020 playoffs: ‘We played like we were up 3-0’
Five takeaways from the fifth-seeded Miami Heat’s 118-115 overtime loss to the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday in the second round of the playoffs at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami still holds a 3-1 lead in the series, but Sunday marked its first loss of the postseason:
The Heat was in perfect position to clinch its first appearance in the conference finals since 2014 on Sunday, but Miami just couldn’t close the deal.
Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo exited the game early in the second quarter after re-injuring the right ankle he sprained in Game 3, and he did not return.
The Heat also led by eight with 8:42 to play.
But Milwaukee kept its season alive, outscoring Miami 15-7 during the final 8:40 of regulation to force overtime.
“You have to credit Milwaukee in this game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I thought in the fourth quarter when we went up [eight], we had a chance to steal this game. But the reality is they deserved to win the game. They were playing harder. They were doing things with more force more consistently, getting us off our spots in our defense. Then their offense, they were just able to get into their wheelhouse basically the entire second half.”
The Heat, which has the third-most efficient fourth-quarter offense in the playoffs, made just three of its final 13 shots of regulation. Miami shot 2 of 3 from inside the paint during this critical stretch, but 1 of 10 on non-paint shots.
“We didn’t finish the game like we usually do,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “That’s a big part of the game, the last six minutes. I feel like we fell apart and we couldn’t execute. Next game, we just got to do a better job of that in the fourth.”
Meanwhile, the feisty shorthanded Bucks did just enough to keep their season alive behind the offense of All-Star Khris Middleton, who finished with a game-high 36 points on 12-of-28 shooting, eight rebounds and eight assists in a season-high 48 minutes.
Milwaukee outscored Miami 11-8 in overtime, with Middleton scoring nine of the Bucks’ 11 points in the extra period. His biggest shot of the night came when he hit a clutch three-pointer over two Heat defenders to give the Bucks a four-point advantage with 6.9 seconds remaining in overtime.
“I feel like we played like we were up 3-0,” Adebayo said. “That’s not giving enough efforts, not sacrificing our body and we ended up losing because we were up 3-0. They’re a good team. At the end of the day, we should have played like we did in Game 1, Game 2 and Game 3.”
Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler, who finished with 17 points on 6-of-15 shooting, agreed with Adebayo: “We did what I always said we can’t do, which is get comfortable. We thought this one was going to be easy, and it was not. You can say all that you want to say. We knew what we had to do coming into this game. So going into the next one, we’ve just got to put them away.”
The Heat turned in its worst defensive performance of the 2020 playoffs against the Giannis-less Bucks.
Miami allowed Milwaukee to score 115.7 points per 100 possessions in Game 4, which is the Heat’s worst single-game defensive rating this postseason. This is a big reason Miami couldn’t close out the series Sunday.
With the help of an extra five-minute overtime period, the Bucks scored 118 points on 48.9 percent shooting from the field and committed just 12 turnovers.
“We didn’t defend with the level of detail and effort and concentration,” Spoelstra said. “And they’re a really good team. Obviously, they’re missing their main scorer. But Middleton has been a No. 1 guy before. They had some easy back cuts, some offensive rebounds, some open shots and then Middleton pretty much took it from there.”
Milwaukee didn’t shoot the ball well from three-point range, making just 11 of its 35 attempts from deep in Game 4. But the Bucks outscored the Heat 54-38 in the paint.
Milwaukee’s paint scoring is surprising, considering Antetokounmpo played just 11 minutes. Without Antetokounmpo, who averaged an NBA-high 17.5 paint points per game in the regular season, Bucks guard Eric Bledsoe contributed 10 paint points, and Donte DiVincenzo and Middleton each added eight paint points.
It also helps that Antetokounmpo scored 14 paint points in his limited action Sunday.
“We had a lot of breakdowns on defense,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said. “There were some silly ones, too. I think that was the biggest problem.
“We knew after Giannis went out that they were gonna play small, and have more attackers. And they’re gonna play through Middleton. He was making some shots. We just need to be more solid. At the free-throw line, try to stay between the player and the basket and a potential shot.”
Also, 16 Heat turnovers that the Bucks turned into 17 points didn’t help.
The Heat’s defense has been solid this postseason, with the league’s fourth-best defensive rating in the playoffs entering Sunday’s contest. But Miami simply just wasn’t good enough on that end of the court in Game 4.
Now that the Bucks have extended the series, will Antetokounmpo be available to play in Game 5 on Tuesday?
That the big question looming over the series, with Antetokounmpo seen by reporters at Disney with a protective boot on his right ankle following Sunday’s contest.
“As far as for Game 5, they’re evaluating him now,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the win. “He’ll get treatment through the night and we’ll just see how he does over the next 24 to 48 hours.”
Antetokounmpo exited the game with 10:17 remaining in the second quarter after turning his injured ankle on a drive to the basket. Before limping off the court and heading back to the locker room, the reigning MVP was in the middle of a dominant performance with 19 of the Bucks’ first 30 points.
“I think we relaxed a little bit,” Butler said of Antetokounmpo leaving Sunday’s game early. “We stopped playing basketball. We stopped performing. We stopped living by our defensive principles. We weren’t getting the 50-50 balls. We were getting outrebounded. It was just all bad.”
Antetokounmpo has turned his right ankle in two consecutive games, as he first sprained the ankle in Friday’s Game 3 loss. He was questionable for Sunday’s contest, before he was cleared to play just before tip-off.
The Bucks are obviously a better team with Antetokounmpo on the court. But in this four-game sample size, Miami has actually outscored Milwaukee by 32 points in the 119 minutes that Antetokounmpo has played in the series.
Milwaukee has outscored Miami by seven points in the 78 minutes that Antetokounmpo has not played in the second round.
Antetokounmpo has averaged 21.8 points on 50.8 percent shooting, 11 rebounds and 5.3 assists in the series. But he has made just 4 of 18 non-paint shots in the second round.
There were some good things for the Heat in its first loss of the 2020 playoffs.
Adebayo was dominant, setting new playoff career-highs in points and assists on Sunday. He finished the Game 4 loss with 26 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists in 44 minutes.
In addition, Jae Crowder just keeps making threes. Crowder finished with 18 points with the help of 6-of-12 shooting from deep.
Crowder is shooting 42.9 percent on threes in the second-round series and 39.4 percent on threes in the playoffs.
Also, Duncan Robinson had his best game of the series. He finished with 20 points on 6-of-12 shooting from three-point range after making just six combined threes in the first three games of the second round.
Finally, Heat rookie Tyler Herro hit some big shots. He scored 11 points, but nine of them came during big moments.
Herro hit a three with 58.6 seconds remaining in regulation to give Miami a one-point lead. The 20-year-old then made a three with 30.1 seconds to play in overtime to cut the Heat’s deficit to one, and he sank his third three of the game with 3.4 seconds remaining in overtime to again cut the Bucks’ lead to one.
The Heat could have made history ... and earned an extended break with a win on Sunday.
Miami was already the first No. 5 seed to hold a a 3-0 playoff series lead over a No. 1 seed in league history. But a win in Game 4 would have made the Heat the first team in NBA history to sweep a No. 1 seed.
A Sunday victory would have also led to at least a four-day break for Miami before beginning the conference finals.
The winner of the Heat-Bucks series faces the winner of the Boston Celtics-Toronto Raptors series in the next round. With the Celtics-Raptors series tied 2-2, the earliest that series can be completed is Wednesday and the earliest the conference finals can begin is Friday.
If the Celtics-Raptors series goes a full seven games, the earliest the Eastern Conference finals can begin is Sunday. That would have meant a full week off if the Heat could have finished the sweep in Game 4.
Miami is one win away from becoming only the second No. 5 seed to advance to the conference finals since 2000, with the only other coming in the 2013 playoffs when the fifth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies were swept by the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals.
Game 5 is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. (TNT).
“You learn from stuff like this,” Butler said of Sunday’s loss. “How fragile this time is and how you can’t take any of this for granted, how you can’t just fall into a game and expect to win. But we have to move on, fairly quickly, because we have another game in two days. But, without a doubt, you learn from it, you go study film. We’ll study our game and you come back ready to rock.”
This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 9:20 PM.
