Wasted opportunity or successful trip? Heat returns to Miami with home-court edge over Bucks
There weren’t many smiles in the Miami Heat’s locker room at Fiserv Forum after Game 2 on Wednesday night. The visiting locker room was quiet, as Heat players gathered their belongings to head back to the team hotel in preparation for their flight home to Miami on Thursday afternoon.
This was the scene after the eighth-seeded Heat’s 138-122 blowout loss to the top-seeded Bucks in Milwaukee — a result that left their best-of-7 Eastern Conference first-round playoff series tied 1-1.
It felt like a wasted opportunity with Bucks superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo missing Game 2 because of a lower back contusion that he sustained in Game 1. But it wasn’t a wasted trip because the Heat returns to Miami for Games 3 and 4 with home-court advantage after escaping Sunday’s series opener with a win at Fiserv Forum.
“All things said, this feels horrible having a game like this,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, as the teams enter another two-day break before resuming the series with Game 3 on Saturday at Kaseya Center. “But we got one and we’re going to regroup and just figure out how to get another one and see if we can start to take control of this series.”
There’s no denying that Game 2 was ugly for the Heat, though, and exposed some real issues that Spoelstra and his staff will need to address in practice Friday.
The Bucks opened the contest by using their size advantage over the Heat to total 26 paint points on 11-of-15 shooting at the rim in the first quarter. Milwaukee had more shots at the rim in the opening quarter of Game 2 than it did in all of Game 1, when it finished 12 of 13 from that area of the court.
The Heat opened Game 2 with its usual undersized starting lineup, leaving the 6-foot-5 Max Strus to guard 7-foot-1 Bucks center Brook Lopez. And Milwaukee did not let Miami off the hook this time, as Lopez scored 14 points with the help of 6-of-7 shooting at the rim in the first quarter on his way to finishing with 24 paint points on 8-of-10 shooting at the rim after taking just two shots at the rim in Game 1.
“I think that it was something that we focused on, knowing that they’re a bit undersized,” Bucks guard Jrue Holiday said. “So if I got in there, I was looking for Brook. He was diving to the front of the rim, he was posting up on Strus or whoever was guarding him. So it was definitely a point of emphasis, trying to get the ball to Brook in the paint.”
When asked if there’s a way the Heat can prevent Lopez from getting so many quality looks around the basket despite its size disadvantage, Spoelstra said he believes there is but noted the team has “got to figure that out.”
The Bucks did even more damage from behind the three-point line in Game 2, outscoring the Heat 75-48 from behind the arc on an incredible 25-of-49 (51 percent) shooting performance from deep to tie the NBA record for the most made threes in a playoff game.
The Bucks, who averaged the fourth-most corner three-point attempts this regular season with 9.7 per game, generated even more than usual Wednesday to finish their Game 2 win 9 of 17 (52.9 percent) on corner threes. The Heat took just five corner threes in the contest.
Six Bucks players made multiple threes in Game 2, led by a 6-of-10 three-point shooting performance off the bench from Pat Connaughton.
This has been a winning formula for the Bucks, as they improved to 48-11 this season in games they have outscored their opponents from three-point range in.
The result: The Heat allowed the most points it has ever given up in a playoff game in franchise history Wednesday.
“They made shots, whether it be at the rim, in the paint and they made a lot of threes,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said. “That’s the game. But we knew that that had a possibility of happening. You got to run them off the line, you got to make them miss. You can’t hope that they miss.”
But maybe the biggest issue of all for the Heat is this came with Antetokounmpo, an NBA MVP candidate, in street clothes on the Bucks’ bench.
Antetokounmpo’s status for the rest of the series remains unclear. Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said Wednesday that the team will “still continue to be optimistic that soon he’ll be able to play.”
But the Heat remains confident as it returns to Miami with home-court advantage entering a pivotal Game 3. Teams that have won Game 3 of a 1-1 best-of-7 NBA playoff series have gone on to win the series 72.8 percent of the time (185-69) in league history.
“The series is 1-1. So the guys in my locker room are who I’m going to ride with,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “That’s what it’s all about. We didn’t come this far to come this far and everybody is doing everything they can, watching film and seeing how they can be better.
“You’re always going to be upset about losses. But the biggest thing for us is we did something we’re supposed to do, go in here and get a win. Now we go back home. It’s time to protect home court.”
Protecting home court won’t be an easy task though. The Bucks posted the NBA’s best road record this regular season at 26-15 on their way to finishing with the best overall record at 58-24.
Life without starting guard Tyler Herro will continue for the Heat, too, after Herro broke his right hand in Sunday’s Game 1 win. Herro will miss the rest of the series and beyond that if the Heat makes it past the Bucks.
Duncan Robinson started in Herro’s place in Game 2, but Spoelstra was noncommittal when asked after the loss whether Robinson will continue starting in Herro’s place for the rest of the series.
History isn’t on the Heat’s side either. Only five No. 8 seeds have eliminated a No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs, with the Heat working to become the sixth team to do it since the current 16-team NBA playoff format was instituted for the 1983-84 season.
“I would like to be up 2-0. But that’s in the past now,” Butler said. “So we’re taking it to the crib and we got to handle business on our home floor.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 10:43 AM.
