Takeaways from Heat’s Game 4 win to take 3-1 lead, as Butler continues to dominate Hawks
Five takeaways from the top-seeded Miami Heat’s 110-86 win over the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night at State Farm Arena. The Heat leads the best-of-7 first-round series 3-1, with Game 5 set for Tuesday in Miami:
The Heat survived its first playoff game without starting point guard Kyle Lowry behind another masterful performance from Jimmy Butler and its defense.
With Lowry out because of a strained left hamstring, Butler came up big with 36 points on 12-of-21 shooting from the field, 1-of-2 shooting on threes and 11-of-12 shooting from the foul line, 10 rebounds, four assists, one block and four steals in 36 minutes.
“In these settings on the road, I think he’s extremely underrated because he’s very steady under the pressure and that just gives your team a lot of confidence,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Butler.
Butler’s best stretch of the night came in a second quarter that set the tone for the rest of the game on both ends of the court.
Trailing by eight points with 7:03 left in the second quarter, the Heat closed the first half on a 26-4 run behind Butler’s dominance to enter halftime with a 14-point lead. Butler scored 13 points during that surge on 5-of-5 shooting.
After wasting a 14-point fourth-quarter lead in Game 3, Butler made sure the Heat wouldn’t blow another big lead in Game 4. He totaled 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting in the fourth quarter on Sunday, as Miami led by as many as 27 points in the final period.
Butler is now averaging 30.5 points while shooting 54.3 percent from the field and 7 of 16 (43.8 percent) on threes, 7.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.8 steals through the first four games of the series. He has very clearly been the best player on the court in this first-round matchup, as the Heat has outscored the Hawks by 20.9 points per 100 possessions with Butler on the court and been outscored by the Hawks by one point per 100 possessions when Butler hasn’t been on the court.
“Everybody’s in my ear about staying aggressive, taking more shots but still playing basketball the right way,” Butler said. “I’m not the only one that’s in a rhythm. I feel like we’re playing great basketball.”
Somehow, the Heat also committed only seven turnovers while dishing out 22 assists despite missing Lowry on Sunday. Miami only had three turnovers in the first three quarters.
It marked the Heat’s fewest turnovers in a playoff game since finishing with just seven turnovers in a May 13, 2016 second-round win over the Toronto Raptors.
The low-turnover outing paired with 15 offensive rebounds led the Heat to finish with 17 more shot attempts than the Hawks in Game 4.
“Even though it was a little bit uneven with our shooting, we took care of the ball,” Spoelstra said. “Those extra possessions were critical.”
As for the Heat’s defense, the Hawks were limited to a season-low 86 points on 40 percent shooting from the field and 15-of-42 (35.7 percent) shooting on threes on Sunday.
Miami’s defense did what it usually does when its at the top of its game, closing off driving lanes to limit Atlanta to just 13 shots at the rim in Game 4, according to Cleaning The Glass. The Heat outscored the Hawks 48-26 in the paint.
For perspective, the Hawks took 23 shots at the rim in their Game 3 win.
Atlanta, which finished the regular season with the NBA’s second-best offensive rating, closed Game 4 with an offensive rating of 96.6 points scored per 100 possessions. It marked the Hawks’ sixth-worst single-game offensive rating of the season, and three of the six have come against the Heat.
Atlanta star guard Trae Young has yet to solve Miami’s defense, closing Game 4 with just nine points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field, including 3 of 10 shooting on threes. He also only took one free throw and finished with five assists and five turnovers.
Young, who averaged 28.4 points and 9.7 assists in the regular season, has averaged just 16.5 points on 35.1 percent shooting from the field and 7-of-33 (21.2 percent) shooting on threes and six assists through the first four games of the series. He has a total of 24 turnovers and 24 assists, and the Hawks have been outscored by 19.4 points per 100 possessions in Young’s minutes.
“If you’re watching the game, you see that they have five people in the paint when I have the ball, so they’re doing a great job of showing help and not letting me get into the paint,” Young said. “When I’m driving, if I try to drive by somebody, they’re sending a double and forcing me to kick it to my teammates.
“I really didn’t get too many clean ones. You have to give them credit.”
The Heat played P.J. Tucker at center as part of a small lineup for extended stretches. The result: Tucker and the Heat thrived.
Tucker closed Sunday’s win with 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting on threes, eight rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes.
But Tucker’s impact went beyond the box score, as his defense, basketball IQ and physicality helped turn the game in the Heat’s favor. Miami outscored Atlanta by 22 points in Tucker’s minutes.
“How do you define a guy like P.J. Tucker? It’s really tough,” Spoelstra said. “I sum it up that he’s just a winner because he does it on both ends of the court.”
One sequence in the third quarter especially stood out: Tucker took advantage of a mismatch in the post to shoulder his way through Young for an easy hook shot, then spun his way through De’Andre Hunter for a layup on the Heat’s next possession, before taking exception to a foul by Hawks center Onyeka Okongwu on the other end as double technicals were called after the confrontation.
All of this happened in a span of 1:03.
In the minutes that starting center Bam Adebayo was on the bench, the Heat used Tucker (6-5, 245) at center for most of Sunday’s win and it worked.
The Heat outscored the Hawks by 17 points in the 12 minutes Tucker played as a center in Game 4.
“When we had to do that in those months without Bam, I liked it,” Spoelstra said, referring to the regular-season stretch the Heat played Tucker at center while Adebayo missed nearly two months of games because of a thumb injury. “I don’t know what the plus minuses were, but those were valuable, versatile minutes for us. But most importantly, we ended up being able to see something different just in case we needed it. We were able to access that now based on need in this series.”
As a result, the Heat’s usual backup center Dewayne Dedmon logged just 3:35 on Sunday.
Without Lowry, the Heat filled the void in its rotation by playing Victor Oladipo for the first time in the series and giving more minutes to Caleb Martin.
As expected, Gabe Vincent started in Lowry’s place. Vincent, 25, made 27 starts in the regular season and most of them came in games Lowry missed.
Vincent finished with 11 points with the help of 3-of-6 shooting from deep, three rebounds and four assists in 27 minutes.
But with Vincent sliding into the starting lineup, that created room in the Heat’s bench rotation. Miami filled the opening by playing Martin for extended minutes and unleashing Oladipo for the first time this postseason.
“This is a 15-man rotation and things happen, and you have to be ready to go,” Spoelstra said. “Our last home game, that was Caleb. He wasn’t playing and then all of a sudden, boom he’s in. And the veteran guys understand that, our staff understands that. In the playoffs, things happen and you just have to prepare and be ready.”
Martin, who averaged 7.6 minutes per game off the bench in the first three games of the series, finished Game 4 with three points, two rebounds and one steal in 19 minutes.
Oladipo, who did not play in the first three games of the series after falling out of the rotation in the final weeks of the regular season, ended his first playoff game game in a Heat uniform with six points on 3-of-10 shooting from the field and 0-of-5 shooting on threes in 23 minutes. Despite his shooting struggles, he still provided a spark with eight rebounds, four assists and solid defense.
When Oladipo entered the game, good things began happening for the Heat.
It initially looked like Oladipo would remain out of the Heat’s rotation on Sunday. He did not enter the game until there was 7:53 left in the second quarter as the fifth player off the bench.
Oladipo played the rest of the quarter. The Heat outscored the Hawks 26-6 during that stretch to close the first half.
The Heat shot 9 of 15 from the field and held the Hawks to 2-of-15 shooting from the field during this second-quarter run with Oladipo in the game.
Despite not scoring any points and missing all of his shots during his second-quarter stint, the former All-Star guard did manage to grab three rebounds and dish out one assist in those minutes. He also held up on the defensive end and was asked to initiate offense for a few possessions with Lowry unavailable.
Oladipo finished the win with a plus/minus of plus-28.
“I’m still finding my rhythm,” Oladipo said. “Like I told the media before, two weeks ago when I was in Orlando, this is still a rehab process. I’m still getting better and stronger every day. I’m still trying to find myself and find my way, but I’ve played basketball all my life. You throw me out there, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. I’ve always been like that.”
Whether Oladipo remains in the Heat’s rotation when Lowry returns is a question that will need to be addressed down the road.
Oladipo only appeared in eight regular-season games after making his season debut on March 7 following an 11-month recovery from surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon in his right knee.
Before three DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) to begin the playoffs, Oladipo did not play in five of the Heat’s final seven regular-season games despite being available.
“He stayed ready,” Spoelstra said of Oladipo. “He makes it a lot easier than it is for a veteran highly decorated player to take the DNPs and do it with grace and class and just continue to prepare and be ready. He gave us winning minutes.”
The Heat is now ahead 3-1, a lead it has never wasted in a best-of-7 series.
There have only been 13 instances in NBA history of a team coming back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-7 playoff series.
The Heat will look to end the series in Game 5 on Tuesday at FTX Arena (7 p.m., TNT and Bally Sports Sun). Lowry’s status for the rest of the series is unclear, with the Heat required to issue a Game 5 injury report by Monday at 5:30 p.m.
With a 3-1 lead, the Heat could opt to rest Lowry to give him more time to heal his hamstring. Even if the Heat closes out the Hawks on Tuesday, its second-round series wouldn’t begin until this weekend at the earliest.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 12:11 AM.
