Big night for offense, East playoff race update and more takeaways from Heat’s 50th win
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 127-109 blowout win over the Chicago Bulls (45-33) on Saturday night at United Center. The Heat (50-28) has won three straight and now moves on to complete its final back-to-back of the season on Sunday night against the Raptors in Toronto:
With one week left in the regular season, the Heat is in good position to finish as the East’s top playoff seed.
Saturday’s win moved the first-place Heat 1.5 games ahead of the second-place Milwaukee Bucks, two games ahead of the third-place Boston Celtics and 2.5 games ahead of the fourth-place Philadelphia 76ers in the East standings. The Heat has just four regular-season games left to play.
Left on the Heat’s schedule: Sunday at Raptors, Tuesday vs. Charlotte Hornets, Friday vs. Atlanta Hawks and April 10 at Orlando Magic. A 3-1 finish would guarantee the Heat the top spot in the East.
The Heat is looking to enter the playoffs as the East’s No. 1 seed for the fourth time in franchise history. Miami also pulled it off in the 2012-13, 2004-05 and 1998-99 seasons.
“It’s a fun time of the year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You look at the standings, everything has context, everything is competitive, every team is playing for something. Even the play-in opportunities are compelling. It’s just a good time for your team to come together and get to a higher level.”
If the Heat finishes as a top-two seed in the East, which looks likely at this point, it wouldn’t learn its opponent until a few days after the close of the regular season. That’s because of the play-in tournament, which will take place from April 12-15, determines the No. 7 and No. 8 playoff seeds in each conference.
As of Saturday night, the teams in position to take part in the East’s play-in tournament are the seventh-place Cleveland Cavaliers, eight-place Atlanta Hawks, ninth-place Charlotte Hornets and 10th-place Brooklyn Nets.
Here’s how it works: At the end of the regular season, the team with the seventh-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the eighth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a play-in game. The winner of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 matchup will be the seventh seed in the playoffs for its conference.
The team with the ninth-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the tenth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a play-in game. The loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game will then host the winner of the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game, and the winner of that game will be the eighth seed in the playoffs for its conference.
So even as the Heat’s place in the East becomes clearer, it looks like it may need to wait until after the regular season to find out which team it will face in the first round of the playoffs.
The Heat’s offense looked very shaky during last week’s season-long four-game losing skid, but Saturday represented one of its best offensive performances of the season.
Miami’s offense was sharp all night, totaling 127 points while shooting 53.7 percent from the field, 17 of 34 (50 percent) on threes and 22 of 27 (81.5 percent) from the foul line while committing just nine turnovers. The Bulls’ final lead of the game came in the first quarter.
“It was a little bit of guys making shots,” Spoelstra said of what worked offensively on Saturday. “Certainly our ball movement and player movement, unselfishness, that’s something that we’ve really been trying to emphasize. We’ve been great with it all year long, so you’re going to go through ups and downs with that.
“But we got to get kind of a re-focus and re-emphasis to that kind of game. During different pockets of the game, we were able to maximize different parts of our menu and different strengths.”
The Heat entered with the NBA’s fourth-best defensive rating and 13th-best offensive rating. But Miami had shown some recent slippage, with the 20th offensive rating since the All-Star break.
Saturday was a positive sign, though, as the Heat’s top four scorers led the way in one of its best offensive performances of the season.
Jimmy Butler finished with 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field, 2-of-3 shooting on threes and 6-of-7 shooting from the foul line, seven rebounds and six assists.
Kyle Lowry ended the night with 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the field, 2-of-5 shooting on threes and 5-of-5 shooting from the foul line to go with 10 assists.
Bam Adebayo contributed 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field, seven rebounds and three assists.
Tyler Herro scored 19 points with the help of 6-of-7 shooting from deep and grabbed eight rebounds.
Those four combined to score 76 of the Heat’s 127 points against the Bulls.
The result was the Heat’s best single-game offensive rating of the season. Miami scored at a season-best pace of 135.1 points per 100 possessions, improving to 18-0 when finishing with an offensive rating of better than 120 and 26-2 when shooting 40 percent or better on threes this season.
Saturday’s game also marked the 68th game in franchise history that the Heat has shot at least 50 percent from the field, 50 percent from three-point range and 80 percent from the foul line.
Chicago’s All-Star duo of DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine combined for 59 points, but it wasn’t enough.
It appears that Butler and Lowry are ready for the playoffs.
Butler has averaged 24.3 points on 60.5 percent shooting from the field and 5-of-11 (45.5 percent) shooting from three-point range, five rebounds and five assists during the Heat’s current three-game winning streak.
Meanwhile, Lowry has totaled 42 points on 14-of-27 (51.9 percent) from the field and 8-of-17 (47.1 percent) shooting on threes, 18 assists and just two turnovers in the last two games. Lowry has shot 32 of 64 (50 percent) from three-point range over his last eight games.
The Heat has outscored opponents by 21.2 points per 100 possessions in the 56 minutes that Butler and Lowry have played together during its three-game winning streak. That’s dominant.
There was a scary moment for the Heat during Saturday’s win: Lowry turned his ankle after landing on his defender’s foot while coming down on a three-point attempt late in the first half. Lowry was slow to get up and limped to the bench, but he remained in the game as the play was ruled a Flagrant 1 on Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu.
Lowry’s first game back in Toronto since leaving the Raptors to join the Heat last summer awaits him on Sunday. Spoelstra said Lowry will play against the Raptors for his homecoming, but “everybody else, we’re going to have to figure that out” on the second night of a back-to-back this late in the season.
“I’m nervous, at the same time I’m excited,” Lowry said of returning to Toronto. “It’s going to be a great moment. I told the guys I gave them a good game today, but I don’t know what I’m going to give them tomorrow. Emotionally I might not be there, but it’s going to be a great day.”
For the first time this season, the Heat had its entire 15-man roster available for a game. But Spoelstra stuck to the rotation that has worked this week.
Caleb Martin returned after missing the previous two games because of a calf contusion to make the Heat’s entire roster available in Chicago.
Martin did not return to his usual spot in the rotation, though. While Martin was out, Spoelstra made a few tweaks to the rotation that he stuck with even with Martin back in uniform on Saturday.
“That’s why as we’re making these moves, we have great depth and these are tough decisions,” Spoelstra said. “I truly believe that there’s probably four or five different rotations and lineups that we can go to that would work because of our depth. But it’s not possible all the time. But we’re going to need everybody.”
For the third straight game, the Heat went with the nine-man rotation of: starters Lowry, Max Strus, Butler, P.J. Tucker and Adebayo, and the bench unit of Herro, Gabe Vincent, Duncan Robinson and Dewayne Dedmon.
The Heat’s bench combined to score 56 points. Along with Herro’s 19 points, Dedmon contributed 14 points in 19 minutes and Vincent scored 13 points in 21 minutes.
One of the most notable aspects of the Heat’s new rotation is Butler and Tucker alternating at the power forward spot when the starting group is not on the court. Spoelstra has been determined to create better offensive spacing for Adebayo and Butler, and playing them as part of smaller lineups with more shooters around them has helped accomplish that.
The Heat is now 3-0 since turning to this rotation after dropping the previous four games.
It’s unusual to see Martin spend an entire game on the bench. It only marked his second DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season, with his only other coming in the second game of the season in October.
The Heat’s success over the Bulls this season continued, and so did the Bulls’ struggles against the NBA’s best.
The Heat swept the four-game season series against the Bulls, with three of those wins coming by double digits.
Meanwhile, the Bulls now hold a combined record of 2-19 against the top-four teams in each conference this season. Chicago’s only two wins in those matchups came against the Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.
Also, worth noting: The Heat improved to 15-2 this season when playing a game coming off of two or more days of rest. In comparison, Miami is just 4-9 on the second night of back-to-backs.
The Heat also clinched its first 50-win season on Saturday since the final season of the Big 3 era in 2013-14.
This story was originally published April 2, 2022 at 10:28 PM.
