Depth, defense lead Heat to series-clinching playoff win over Hawks. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the top-seeded Miami Heat’s 97-94 series-clinching win over the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night at FTX Arena. The Heat won the best-of-7 series 4-1:
The Heat now has nearly a week off before beginning its second-round playoff series, and that break comes at the perfect time.
With Heat starters Jimmy Butler (right knee inflammation) and Kyle Lowry (strained left hamstring) unavailable for Tuesday’s win, the team’s hope is the upcoming layoff will be enough time for both to be available for the start of the second round.
The Heat’s second-round series will begin on Monday at FTX Arena against the winner of the first-round matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors. The 76ers currently lead the series 3-2, with Game 6 set for Thursday in Toronto.
That gives the Heat five full days off before opening the second round.
“The next couple days while we just watch what’s going on, I just want everybody living in the training room,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Go back to our cave, bandage up, hopefully get healthy and then see what happens in that series. But definitely the guys have earned a couple days of just quality rest and treatment.”
The Heat is expected to return to practice Friday after taking Wednesday and Thursday off. That’s a well-timed break with Butler, 32, and Lowry, 36, dealing with injuries.
Butler was ruled out for Game 5 just about three hours before tipoff because of a swollen right knee. The hope and belief is that Butler’s knee issue is minor, with no MRI or other medical tests planned for the injury as of Tuesday night.
If the Heat would have lost Tuesday, the expectation was that Butler would have been able to play in Game 6 on Thursday.
As for Lowry, he left Friday’s Game 3 in the third quarter after injuring his hamstring and hasn’t played since.
In the regular season, Lowry’s strained hamstring would likely force him to miss more than a week. But he has been pushing to play through the pain in the playoffs, with a return depending on whether the Heat feels comfortable clearing him.
Aside from Butler and Lowry, the rest of the Heat’s roster was available to play in Game 5.
The Heat’s elite defense was simply better than the Hawks’ elite offense, and it wasn’t close. That was the story of the series.
Even without Butler and Lowry, the Heat defense’s domination of the Hawks continued in Game 5 to close out the series.
Atlanta totaled just 94 points on 41.9 percent shooting from the field and 32 percent shooting on threes while committing 19 turnovers that Miami turned into 14 points.
Hawks star guard Trae Young’s miserable series also continued, as he finished Game 5 with just 11 points on 2-of-12 shooting from the field and 0-of-5 shooting on thees, six assists and six turnovers in 41 minutes.
The Heat’s constant full-court pressure bothered the Hawks throughout the series.
Atlanta, which finished the regular season with the NBA’s second-best offensive rating with 115.4 points scored per 100 possessions, recorded an offensive rating of 104.1 points scored per 100 possessions in the series that would have ranked third-worst among teams in the regular season.
With the Heat making it a priority to send waves of defenders to deter the Hawks from entering the paint, Atlanta averaged just 33 drives per game in the series. Atlanta averaged 43.7 drives per game in the regular season.
Miami slowed Atlanta’s offense by shutting down Young, who finished the regular season as the NBA’s fourth-leading scorer with 28.4 points per game.
Young averaged only 15.4 points on 31.9 percent shooting from the field and 7-of-38 (18.4 percent) on threes in the series. He finished with a total of 30 assists and 30 turnovers, and made only 22 shots in the five games.
“They’re a good defensive team,” Young said of the Heat. “Their team is more of a system than who they have on their team, and no matter who they have out there, they can play. It’s about their system. Their defensive system is all about helping.”
Three of Young’s four lowest-scoring games of the season came in the first round.
“We know [Young] does a lot for them offensively, so we just wanted to keep it physical and do what we do,” Heat forward Max Strus said. “It’s really that simple and guys just stepped up. Guys took the one-on-one challenge. We knew that to stop Trae was going to stop them, so we really took that personal.”
Without two of the Heat’s top offensive engines in Butler and Lowry, others had to step up in their place. Victor Oladipo and Bam Adebayo delivered.
After receiving three DNP-CDs to begin the playoffs, Oladipo started Game 5 in place of the injured Butler. Oladipo finished with a team-high 23 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes and provided his usual solid defense in 36 minutes of action.
Adebayo, who entered Tuesday averaging just 10.5 points and 7.3 rebounds through the first four games of the series, closed Game 5 with 20 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.
“I thought Bam was just tremendous,” Spoelstra said. “It was just winning basketball all the way around.”
But Oladipo became the story of the game because of what he has been through in the last three years and what it could mean for his role moving forward.
Oladipo, 29, started the playoffs out of the Heat’s rotation. But injuries forced him into the mix, with Lowry’s absence opening a spot for Oladipo in Game 4 and Oladipo then stepping into an even bigger role in Game 5 with Butler and Lowry out.
“He worked, he prepared,” Spoelstra said. “And it’s true, crazy things happen and there’s a karma to it. If you do the right things and you stay patient, it might not be on your terms or your timeline. But then when your opportunity is there, you’re able to take advantage of it and then you have everybody enjoying his success.”
The question now becomes will Oladipo remain in the Heat’s rotation with Butler and Lowry expected to return in the second round?
Oladipo produced very positive minutes in the two games he played in during the series, posting a plus/minus of plus-35 in the first round.
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. The Heat opted to emphasize offensive spacing around Adebayo and Butler by playing its best outside shooters ahead of Oladipo.
But Oladipo, who made his season debut on March 7 following an 11-month recovery from surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon in his right knee, may have played himself into more consistent playing time moving forward this postseason.
“A year ago today, I was expecting and waiting for my next surgery,” Oladipo said, reflecting back to April 26, 2021 when he was just days away from the second surgery on his right knee. “I remember a year ago today around this time last year, I was sitting in a dark room by myself and just broke down. Not because I quit, but because I was at the lowest point I could be at. Now, God put me in this position today, so I just made the most of it.”
Game 5 turned in the Heat’s favor for good in the final four minutes of the second quarter, and the Hawks never led in the second half.
The Heat was struggling to generate offense up until this stretch, with 37 points on 1-of-10 shooting on threes before a 17-2 run to close the second quarter. The surge turned a three-point deficit into a 12-point halftime lead.
The run began with a 17-foot step-back jumper from Tyler Herro with 4:05 left in the second quarter.
Then following a timeout, the Heat came out with a full-court press that forced two straight Hawks turnovers in the backcourt.
The first: Gabe Vincent stole the inbound pass and that turned into a Strus dunk.
The second: The Heat’s pressure forced Kevin Huerter to lose the ball out of bounds and Strus hit a three-pointer on the next possession.
Strus followed those two baskets up with a layup and another three for his own personal 10-0 run in the middle of the Heat’s 17-2 spurt to close the first half.
A Flagrant 1 foul on Hawks center Clint Capela then led to a five-point possession for the Heat. Adebayo made two free throws, and Vincent then converted on an and-1 layup seconds later with the Flagrant foul giving Miami the ball back following Adebayo’s free throws.
The Hawks ended the Heat’s string of 17 unanswered points with two De’Andre Hunter free throws 3.2 seconds left in the first half.
By then, though, the Heat was ahead 54-42 entering halftime.
“I think those minutes when Gabe kind of junked it up and just applied a lot of pressure,” Strus said of that big stretch, “I think that’s what got us going and turned the game around for us.”
The Heat shot 6 of 11 (54.5 percent) from the field and 2 of 4 (50 percent) from three-point range during the run, while the Hawks missed all four of its shots from the field and committing six turnovers during this four-minute stretch.
“That was just a great stretch because it was all fueled with really inspiring defense and we were able to score off those stops,” Spoelstra said.
The Hawks opened the second half on an 8-0 run to cut the deficit to four, but the Heat responded with a 13-2 run to push its lead up to 15 with 2:55 left in the third quarter.
The Hawks made another run in the fourth quarter to cut the Heat’s lead to two with 1:14 to play.
But that’s the closest Atlanta would get in the second half.
The Heat did something it hasn’t done much this season: win a game when shooting worse than 28 percent on threes.
Before Tuesday’s win, Miami was 3-10 when shooting worse than 28 percent from three-point range this season.
But the Heat improved to 4-10 in that situation, eliminating the Hawks with a Game 5 win despite shooting just 7 of 31 (22.6 percent) from deep.
The Heat pulled it off by outscoring the Hawks 54-28 from inside the paint.
Three-point shooting is usually an accurate win-loss indicator for the Heat, as it’s also 30-2 this season when shooting better than 40 percent from three-point range.
But poor outside shooting didn’t mean a loss on Tuesday.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 12:10 AM.
