Takeaways from Heat’s playoff-clinching win, and the latest on Jimmy Butler’s eye injury
The Miami Heat has struggled without Jimmy Butler this season. But during one of the most important moments of its season, the Heat found a way to overcome Butler’s unexpected absence.
With Butler held out of the second half after he was poked in the eye late in the second quarter, the Heat still managed to come away with a 129-121 playoff-clinching win over the Boston Celtics (35-34) at TD Garden on Tuesday night. Miami has won 10 of its past 13 games, including back-to-back victories over the Celtics in Boston.
The Heat (38-31) is now assured of a trip to the playoffs as one of the Eastern Conference’s top six seeds and will avoid the play-in tournament. Miami will open the postseason on either May 22 or 23 and will get at least five days off following Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Pistons in Detroit.
It marks the 22nd time the Heat has clinched a playoff spot in the franchise’s 33 seasons, and the 20th time in the last 26 seasons since Pat Riley joined the organization in 1995. This is also the 10th time the Heat has qualified for the playoffs in Erik Spoelstra’s 13 seasons as head coach.
“That does mean something,” Spoelstra said of clinching a playoff spot. “We don’t want to just act like it’s nothing. But it’s not everything. It’s not ultimately what we want. ... There have been a lot of ups and downs and different experiences that I think we’ve used to develop some grit with this group. So it’s the first box that we wanted to check and obviously we want to keep on going.”
Butler was available for the entire first half and the Heat entered halftime with a six-point lead.
Despite Butler missing the rest of the game, the Heat dominated most of the second half and led by as many as 21 points. After a first half that included 13 lead changes and six ties, Miami never trailed in the final two quarters.
The Celtics pulled within one point with 7:48 remaining in the third period and the Heat closed the quarter on a 25-12 run to enter the fourth ahead by 14.
The Heat then opened the final quarter on a 12-5 run to build a 21-point lead with 9:04 to play.
Miami’s second-half success not only came without Butler, but it also came with star center Bam Adebayo scoring just seven points in the final two quarters.
Playing off of Adebayo, the others stepped up to fill the offensive void for the Heat.
Duncan Robinson scored 13 of his 22 points in the second half, finishing 5 of 9 from three-point range and 5 of 6 from the foul line.
Goran Dragic scored 14 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter. He shot 4 of 6 on threes in the final period.
Tyler Herro contributed a team-high 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting off the Heat’s bench and Kendrick Nunn added 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting.
Adebayo finished with 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting, seven rebounds, five assists, one steal and two blocks in 35 minutes. He totaled 42 points on 15-of-20 shooting in the Heat’s two wins in Boston.
The Heat shot an efficient 59.3 percent from the field and 16 of 30 on threes in Tuesday’s victory. Miami, which owns the NBA’s 21st-best offensive rating this season, has the fifth-best offensive rating since the start of April.
“I think what was really important in the second half was a bunch of guys stepped up, but Bam really anchored us in a lot of ways that Jimmy normally does,” Spoelstra said. “The ball was going through him usually to start whatever action we were getting to and then other guys stepped up and made a bunch of plays from there.”
The Celtics made a late run to cut the deficit to six with 10.2 seconds left, but that was the closest they would get.
Boston was led by guard Kemba Walker, who finished with a game-high 36 points.
The Heat now returns to Miami for its final home game of the regular season, a Thursday night matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s playoff-clinching win over the Celtics:
With Tuesday’s win, the Heat also moved to fifth place in the East standings.
The No. 5 Heat is now three games ahead of the No. 7 Celtics in the East standings with just three regular-season games left to play. Miami also clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over Boston with Tuesday’s victory, winning the season series 2-1.
The play-in tournament includes the teams with the seventh-highest through the 10th-highest winning percentages in each conference.
Now that the Heat knows it won’t be part of the play-in tourney, it turns its attention to moving up the standings in the final days of the regular season.
The Heat currently holds the same record as the No. 4 Atlanta Hawks and No. 6 New York Knicks at 38-31, but the Hawks come out ahead in the three-way tie because they are the only division leader in the group.
The fifth-place Heat is ahead of the sixth-place Knicks because it won the season series over New York 3-0. The Knicks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.
The list of potential first-round opponents for the Heat includes the 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, Milwaukee Bucks, Knicks, Hawks and even Celtics. But Boston needs a lot to go its way to avoid the play-in tourney and face Miami in the first round.
Butler was off to another strong start, but he did not play in the second half because of a poked eye.
Butler scored 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 shooting from the foul line in 17 first-quarter minutes, but he did not play in the second half after getting poked in the eye.
Butler was poked in the eye during a collision with Celtics guard Marcus Smart while pursuing a loose ball in the final minute of the first half. Spoelstra said he does not believe Butler will need to enter concussion protocol.
“It’s not from a concussion. It’s more like getting smacked in the eye,” Spoelstra said of Butler. “He was warming up with a ball in the locker room to start the fourth quarter, gearing up getting ready to play. But I thought it was really good for our team to finish the game and have to do it in a different way than we did the other night when Jimmy was so spectacular in the fourth quarter.”
It has been an up-and-down sophomore NBA season for Herro, but he appears to be rounding back into form just in time for the playoffs.
Herro finished Tuesday’s win with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 4-of-7 shooting on threes in 35 minutes. He scored 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first half in his usual bench role, and then started the second half in place of Butler and scored nine points in the fourth quarter.
Herro has averaged 21 points on 67.6 percent shooting from the field and 12-of-18 (66.7 percent) shooting from three-point range in the last three games. Before this impressive three-game stretch, Herro missed the previous six games with a sore right foot.
“It’s very rewarding,” Herro said of his hot play since returning from injury. “But I feel like behind the scenes, I put the hours in no matter what. I didn’t forget how to play basketball.”
The Heat has outscored opponents by 38 points with Herro on the court since he returned from injury last week.
“Everybody wants just to see what that final line is in the scoreboard, but we’re developing him as a complete player to learn how to win, to impact winning and he has come a long way,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat picked the perfect time to earn its first two-game series sweep (in the same city) of the season.
Tuesday marked the 10th and final time this regular season that the Heat played consecutive games against the same opponent in the same venue. Miami was unable to pick up a two-game sweep in any of the first nine opportunities, splitting six and getting swept three times.
But the Heat earned an important sweep of the Celtics in Boston, winning Sunday and following it up with another victory on Tuesday at TD Garden to avoid the play-in tournament.
The NBA integrated the two-game series concept into the 2020-21 regular-season schedule to help reduce travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There remains no update on the status of injured Heat guard Victor Oladipo.
Asked before Tuesday’s game if he had an update on Oladipo’s status, Spoelstra said: “I don’t.”
Oladipo missed his 17th consecutive game with right knee soreness and remains out indefinitely with just three regular-season games left on the schedule. He was the only Heat player unavailable for Tuesday’s contest.
The Celtics were without All-Star forward Jaylen Brown (torn ligament in left wrist) and center Robert Williams (left foot turf toe).
This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 10:14 PM.
