Takeaways from Heat’s bounce-back win over Bulls, and where things stand in playoff race
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 106-101 bounce-back win over the Chicago Bulls (25-35) on Saturday night at AmericanAirlines Arena to begin a three-game homestand:
The Heat (32-29) looked to be on the way to one of its most convincing wins of the season. But it turned into Miami’s 32nd clutch game.
Miami lost to an Atlanta Hawks team on Friday that was without its leading scorer Trae Young and leading rebounder Clint Capela by 15 points at State Farm Arena. The defeat was especially costly because it carried important playoff implications, with the Heat wasting an opportunity to move up to fifth in the Eastern Conference standings and losing the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Hawks.
The Heat responded by returning home to narrowly avoid what would have been another crushing defeat to the short-handed Bulls.
“I don’t think it got too much to do with last night in Atlanta,” Jimmy Butler said after Saturday’s win. “It’s a new day, new game, new team. We talked about that, let it go, moved on. We just had a little bit of a lapse. We won, so I’m not complaining, though.”
Miami actually never trailed in the contest and led by as many as 24 points in the first half, but it turned into a close game in the fourth quarter.
Here’s how it all went down:
The Heat led by 15 at end of the first quarter, which is the second-biggest lead it has carried into the second quarter this season.
The Heat then carried that momentum into the second quarter to take a 20-point lead into halftime. It marked Miami’s second-biggest halftime lead of the season.
That’s when the things turned.
The Bulls outscored the Heat 22-19 in the third quarter to enter the fourth in a 17-point hole.
Chicago then began its big run and opened the final period on a 21-7 run to trim Miami’s lead to just three with 7:09 to play.
The Bulls moved even closer in the final seconds, as guard Coby White drove past Bam Adebayo for a dunk to cut the Heat’s lead to two with 15.8 seconds remaining.
But that’s the closest Chicago got, with Miami guard Kendrick Nunn making both free throws after an intentional foul to push the lead to four with 12.7 seconds left. Adebayo then made one of two free throws after another intentional foul with 1.2 seconds to play to increase the Heat’s lead to five before the final buzzer sounded.
The Bulls outscored the Heat 60-45 in the second half, but Miami’s 20-point halftime cushion was enough to hold on for the victory. Chicago scored 38 points on 66.7 percent shooting from the field and 6-of-12 shooting on threes in the final period.
The Bulls’ duo of Nikola Vucevic and White led the Bulls, combining for 57 points in the loss. Vucevic finished with 26 points, 14 rebounds and six assists, and White finished with 31 points, five rebounds and five assists.
In the second half, Vucevic scored 16 points and White scored 21 points.
In the end, Miami improved to 17-15 in clutch games, which is is defined as a game that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter.
“I don’t think we let our foot off the pedal,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the fourth quarter. “We didn’t execute necessarily with precision and getting into our offense earlier. I thought we were defending and competing at a high level. Teams are going to go on runs. But we closed it out with some great efforts.”
Even after Saturday’s win, the Heat remains in seventh place in the East standings with just 11 regular-season games left to play. Miami is now one-half game behind the No. 6 Boston Celtics, 1.5 games behind the No. 5 Hawks and two games behind the No. 4 New York Knicks.
The Heat also moved two games ahead of the eighth-place Charlotte Hornets.
“There was definitely an edge and probably an angst about trying to do whatever we have to do to get this win tonight and that’s just simply the way it has to be the rest of the year,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat’s leading duo of Adebayo and Butler stepped up late to end the Bulls’ hopes of a comeback.
After Chicago cut Miami’s lead to three with 7:09 to play, Adebayo and Butler combined to either score or assist on 17 of the Heat’s final 19 points.
Adebayo played the entire fourth quarter, scoring five points and dishing out three assists in the period. Butler played the final 7:40 of the contest and recorded nine points during that span.
Adebayo finished with 20 points, six rebounds and tied a season-high with 10 assists.
Butler finished with 20 points, five rebounds, eight assists and four steals.
“We’re at a point where whatever is necessary,” Spoelstra said. “Jimmy and Bam are our guys. Certain nights like tonight, there’s going to be more required. Chicago knocked down a bunch of shots and got back into the game, and that’s just the way it was.”
Duncan Robinson caught fire early and it helped open up the rest of the Heat’s offense.
Robinson began the game by making his first four three-point attempts in the first 4:36 of the contest. He finished the first quarter with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from deep and three rebounds.
The four threes tied Robinson’s career-high for three-point makes in the opening period.
Robinson, who turned 27 on Thursday, ended the first half with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from deep. It’s the fourth time in Robinson’s Heat career that he has made six or more threes in the first half, which is the most such occurrences by a single player in franchise history.
Robinson finished the win with 23 points and tied a season-high with seven made threes on a season-high 15 three-point attempts. It marked the 25th consecutive game that Robinson has hit multiple threes in, which broke the franchise record he set last season of 24 games.
“When you have it going early like that, start 4-for-4 or whatever, I thought my teammates did a great job of continuing to seek me out,” Robinson said. “Just try and let it fly. Sometimes when you have it like that, it feels like everything’s going in. Obviously that wasn’t the case in the second half. A lot of times, if I’m still being that aggressive, I think it helps us. Just have to continue to try and do that.”
After Robinson made his first four threes of the game, the Bulls’ defense paid more attention to him and the rest of the Heat’s offense benefited from the extra space that created for others.
Miami outscored Chicago by 16 points with Robinson on the court Saturday and Chicago outscored Miami by 11 points when Robinson was on the bench.
Four Heat players finished with 20 or more points against the Bulls. Along with Adebayo, Butler and Robinson, Nunn scored 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting.
After losing to the short-handed Hawks on Friday, the Heat faced another opponent missing a key player on Saturday.
The Bulls played without All-Star guard and leading scorer Zach LaVine, who’s averaging 27.5 points on 50.6 percent shooting, because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Saturday marked the sixth straight game LaVine has missed while in protocols, and coach Billy Donovan said LaVine will also miss Monday’s matchup against the Heat to close the teams’ back-to-back two-game “series” in Miami.
The Bulls fell to 3-4 in games LaVine has missed this season.
Chicago was also without wing Troy Brown Jr. (left ankle sprain) on Saturday.
While the Heat should win games against opponents missing important pieces, it has had trouble in those situations this season.
Along with Friday’s loss to the short-handed Hawks, the Heat also lost twice to a Los Angeles Clippers team without the All-Star duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on Jan. 28 and Feb. 15, a Washington Wizards team missing Russell Westbrook on Feb. 3, a Golden State Warriors team missing without Draymond Green and James Wiseman on Feb. 17, and a Denver Nuggets team without Jamal Murray on April 14.
The Heat also played without a few rotation players on Saturday.
Reserve guards Goran Dragic (lower back and right knee injury recovery) and Tyler Herro (right foot soreness) missed the contest after playing in Friday’s loss to the Hawks. In addition, starting guard Victor Oladipo missed his ninth consecutive game on Saturday because of right knee soreness.
Herro, 21, has been dealing with foot pain in recent weeks. The injury also kept him out of Monday’s win over the Houston Rockets.
With Dragic and Herro out, Miami used a bench rotation of Gabe Vincent, Dewayne Dedmon, Andre Iguodala and Max Strus against the Bulls.
This story was originally published April 24, 2021 at 10:31 PM.
