Takeaways from Heat’s rough start to Finals: An 18-point loss and injuries to Adebayo, Dragic
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 116-98 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday in Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. Los Angeles now holds a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 series:
Making the Game 1 loss worse? Injuries to starters Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo.
Dragic did not play in the second half because of a left foot injury after scoring six points on 3-of-8 shooting to go with three assists in 15 minutes in the first two quarters. The injury seemed to occur when Dragic stepped on Lakers guard Rajon Rondo’s foot with his left foot, but coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game he was unsure when the injury occurred.
A league source confirmed that Dragic suffered a torn left plantar fascia. His status for the remainder of the Finals is still unclear because players have played through the injury in the past, and Dragic has not been ruled out for the rest of the series yet.
“Just let him know that I and we are here for him,” Jimmy Butler said of his message to Dragic. “We know how much he wants to win, how much he wants to go to war and battle with us. Obviously we love him for that and we want him out there with us.
“But whatever the doctor tells him to do, that’s what he’s got to do. I understand that he wants to go out there and compete and obviously we want him out there with us. But he got to take care of himself first.”
As for Adebayo, he did not return after exiting the game with 6:04 remaining in the third quarter because of a strained left shoulder. According to the Heat, an X-ray on the shoulder returned negative.
Adebayo came away wincing after a collision with Lakers center Dwight Howard and left the court soon after. It’s the same shoulder that looked to bother Adebayo during the East finals, but he downplayed the injury last week.
If Adebayo and/or Dragic are forced to miss any games in this series, it would be tough for the Heat to overcome.
Adebayo averaged 18.5 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 1.2 steals in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
Dragic averaged a team-high 20.9 points on 45.2 percent shooting to go with 4.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists in the first three rounds.
Adebayo and Dragic are tied with a team-best plus/minus of plus-77 this postseason.
“Be ready to go with or without Goran. We’re still expecting to win,” Butler said when asked about the possibility of playing without Dragic. “We still know that we can. Like I said earlier, we want that guy out there with us. He’s a big part of what we’re trying to do, but until we can have him back, we got to go out there and we got to fight even harder. We got to try to cover up what he gives us and make up for it. We’re capable of it. We have to be capable of it.”
One of the key matchups in the series is Los Angeles’ Anthony Davis vs. Adebayo. Davis was the clear winner in Game 1, and it’s no coincidence his team won Wednesday.
Davis finished the victory with a game-high 34 points on 11-of-21 shooting from the field and 10-of-10 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds, five assists and three blocks.
Adebayo recorded eight points on 2-of-8 shooting, four rebounds and zero assists in 21 minutes before exiting the game because of a shoulder injury.
Adebayo and Davis didn’t go head to head on many possessions, with the Heat opting to use the 6-6 Jae Crowder to defend the 6-10 Davis. Adebayo started the game on Howard.
“I personally don’t want to send him to the line 10 times,” Crowder said of defending Davis. “I think he was 10 for 10 from the free-throw line. We’ve got to find a way to defend him without fouling as much as possible, make it as tough as possible for him and defend him without fouling. Sending him to the free-throw line for 10 free throws, that’s a lot.”
The Lakers’ All-Star duo of LeBron James and Davis combined for 59 points, 22 rebounds and 14 assists. James finished with 25 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists.
The Heat’s All-Star duo of Butler and Adebayo combined for 31 points, six rebounds and five assists. Butler was Miami’s best player Wednesday, finishing with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting on threes, two rebounds and five assists.
Butler tweaked his ankle a couple times in Game 1, but said he expects to be fine for Game 2.
“A little bit sore. I’ll be OK with some treatment,” Butler said of his ankle. “I’ll get ready to go again. I think I got to be ready to go.”
Three-point shooting was supposed to be one of the Heat’s biggest advantages in the championship series. But it was the Lakers that were the better outside shooting team in Game 1.
The Lakers, which entered the Finals shooting 35.5 percent from three-point range this postseason, shot 15 of 38 (39.5 percent) on threes on Wednesday. Los Angeles is now 28-3 this season when shooting 38 percent or better on threes.
The Lakers were especially hot in the first half, shooting 11 of 17 on threes in the first two quarters. Los Angeles actually shot just 4 of 21 on threes in the second half, but it was already in control of the game by then.
The Lakers, which averaged the NBA’s second-most paint points in the regular season at 52.8 per game, are nearly unbeatable when it makes threes like it did in Game 1 of the Finals.
That’s because Los Angeles hasn’t been known as an efficient three-point shooting team this season. The Lakers averaged 11 made threes (23rd-most in NBA) on 34.9 percent shooting from deep (21st-best) in the regular season.
“I think we have to do a better job of just trying to contain a little better, guarding the yard a little better and helping one another a little better,” Crowder said, pointing to dribble penetration as the reason for the open threes. “I think that takes multiple efforts. We’re capable of doing it. We’ve shown we’re able to do it. We just have to apply it, especially now. At this level of the season, it’s do or die, so we have to apply it.”
Crowder said he wanted to re-watch the game “because I just want to get better on my end and help my teammates as much as possible.”
Danny Green shot 3 of 8 from deep, James shot 2 of 4, Davis shot 2 of 4, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope shot 2 of 6 and Markieff Morris shot 2 of 3 on Wednesday.
“We’re better than we showed tonight,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s three-point defense. “Now this is a very highly skilled, talented team. They have guys at the point of attack in James and Davis that are going to break your defense down, can make plays over the top. So you have to be on a string, and you can’t start to make things up, you have to be extremely disciplined and stay with it. There was too many times that they got us out of our typical things that we do. But that’s also a big-time credit to them.”
The Heat is the better outside shooting team in the series, finishing the regular season with the NBA’s second-best team three-point percentage (37.9). Miami also made 14.1 threes per game and shot 38 percent from deep in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
But the Heat shot just 11 of 35 (31.4 percent) from three-point range in Game 1.
Crowder (4 of 7 on threes) and Butler (2 of 4 on threes) combined to shot 6 of 11 from behind the arc. Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson finished 0 of 3 from deep and rookie Tyler Herro was 2 of 8 on threes.
One of the Lakers’ expected advantages, size, also helped in Game 1. With Los Angeles starting two bigs in Howard and Davis against Miami’s starting frontcourt of Adebayo and Crowder, the Lakers outrebounded the Heat 54-36 and scored 16 second-chance points on nine offensive rebounds.
“We just got to be tougher,” Butler said. “We got to put up more of a fight. I don’t think we did that. And then it doesn’t help whenever we don’t make shots. It’s been that way all year long, whenever we start to miss a couple shots, we don’t do what we’re supposed to do on the other end.
“So I think we should always think about letting our defense, for sure our rebounding, start it off for us and then hopefully we start to make shots.”
The Heat again used forward Solomon Hill as the third player off its bench in Game 1 of the Finals. But it was rookie Kendrick Nunn who was Miami’s best reserve Wednesday.
The starting five was the same as it has been throughout the playoffs: Dragic, Robinson, Butler, Crowder and Adebayo.
The bench rotation included, in order of when they entered the game, Herro, Andre Iguodala, Hill, Derrick Jones Jr., Nunn and Kelly Olynyk.
Hill, who did not play in the first 12 games of the Heat’s playoff run, has now played in four consecutive games as the eighth man ahead of Jones, Nunn and Olynyk. Hill, who was used to defend James for a few possessions, finished with four points and three rebounds in 18 minutes.
Jones entered the game after Adebayo picked up his second foul with 1:16 remaining in the first quarter and played the remainder of the period. He then entered again late in the game to finish with two points and one rebound in seven minutes.
Olynyk and Nunn only entered the game midway through the third quarter with the Lakers already leading by more than 25 points.
Olynyk recorded four points, five rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes.
But Nunn was one of the few bright spots for the Heat, finishing with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting, five rebounds and two assists in 20 minutes. It’s the most points he has scored in the playoffs, as Nunn entered the Finals averaging 3.2 points on 29.3 percent shooting this postseason.
Olynyk logged just four minutes in the previous three games, and it marked Nunn’s first game action since Game 3 of the East finals.
It took a while, but the Heat is trailing in a playoff series for the first time this postseason.
Miami swept its first-round series 4-0 over the Indiana Pacers, took a 3-0 lead before winning its second-round series 4-1 over the Milwaukee Bucks, and jumped out to a 2-0 lead before winning the Eastern Conference finals 4-2 over the Boston Celtics.
But the Heat now faces a series deficit for the first time this postseason after dropping Game 1 to the Lakers. Miami has a 12-4 record in this year’s playoffs.
“We’re much better than we showed tonight,” Spoelstra said. “You have to credit the Lakers, and we’ll get to work for the next one.”
This is somewhat new territory for James, too. Wednesday’s win marked just the second time James’ team has won Game 1 in his 10 Finals appearances.
The only other time James won Game 1 of the Finals was with the Heat in 2011 against the Mavericks, when Miami went on to lose Game 2 and the series.
“The best teacher in life is experience,” James said. “I’ve experienced moments in my career where you have all the momentum in the world and you felt like you had the game under control, and one play here or one play there could change the course of a series or change the course of a game.
“One in particular that always rings home for me is Game 2 of the 2011 Finals in Miami versus Dallas. D-Wade hits a three right by their bench. I believe it put us up either 13 or 17. From that moment on, Dallas went on a hell of a run and finished it off with a Dirk Nowitzki left-hand layup to steal that game. That (expletive) burns me to this day.”
What’s the Heat’s history when it falls in a 1-0 hole? Miami holds an 8-12 all-time record in playoff series that it has lost the first game in.
Game 2 of the Finals is Friday at 9 p.m. on ABC.
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 1:42 AM.
