How Heat matches up with Celtics and Bucks, who will play in a Game 7 on Sunday
The Heat will need to wait two more days to learn its opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, forcing their Eastern Conference semifinal to a Game 7 at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in Boston.
The winner of that game will meet the Heat in the conference finals, beginning at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at FTX Arena.
Regardless of Sunday’s winner, the Heat will be facing its most difficult challenge of the postseason. Both are highly-skilled teams with healthy superstars and a defensive bent similar to the Heat’s.
Though Boston will play host to Game 7, keep in mind that Milwaukee already has won twice there in this series.
A quick refresher on the Heat/Bucks recent history:
Miami eliminated heavily-favored Milwaukee in five games of a conference semifinals in the Orlando bubble in 2020, leaving the Bucks wondering what they needed to do to build a championship team around Giannis Antetokounmpo. They traded for point guard Jrue Holiday months later.
Then the Bucks bounced the Heat from last year’s playoffs with a four-game first-round sweep. Milwaukee went on to win the championship, and the Heat --- realizing it needed to augment to roster --- added PJ Tucker and Kyle Lowry last summer.
This season, the Heat blew out the visiting Bucks on opening night, 137-95, behind 27 from Tyler Herro.
Milwaukee won the next game, 124-102, in Milwaukee on Dec. 4, despite 25 points from Max Strus.
Miami won the next meeting 113-104 on Dec. 8 in Miami, behind 28 from Caleb Martin.
Milwaukee won the final meeting, 120-119, on March 2 in Wisconsin, behind 28 points from Antetokounmpo and despite 30 from Herro.
Antetokounmpo averaged 19.3 points and 11.0 rebounds in the season series against the Heat, while shooting just 38.6 percent from the field.
Holiday averaged a team high 22.7 points and 7.3 assists against the Heat.
And according to ESPN, Milwaukee is expected to get back Khris Middleton in the Eastern Finals if the Bucks make it; the veteran scorer has been out since sustaining a knee injury in Game 2 of the first round. He averaged 20.1 points this season and 19.5 against the Heat.
Herro led the Heat in scoring against the Bucks this season, averaging 20.3. Kyle Lowry, whose status for the start of the series is dubious because of a hamstring injury, led Miami in assists (8.7) in the season series.
Butler appeared in only two of the four games, averaging 13.5 points on 8 for 24 shooting.
Adebayo averaged 19.5 points and 12.5 rebounds in two games against Milwaukee.
The Heat and Celtics played three times this season, with Boston winning the first two (95-78 on Nov. 4 in Miami and 122-92 on Jan. 31) and losing a March 30 meeting, 106-98 in Boston.
Butler averaged 22 points and Strus averaged 20.5 points against Boston, while Adebayo averaged 14 points and 8.0 rebounds.
Herro struggled against the Celtics, averaging 10.3 points on 13 for 43 shooting (30.2 percent)
Boston guard Jaylen Brown was very good against the Heat, averaging 24.7 points and hitting 11 of 23 three-pointers.
Jayson Tatum averaged 17.7 points against the Heat but hit only 5 of 17 three-pointers.
Tatum scored 46 points in Boston’s Game 6 win at Milwaukee on Friday.
The Celtics have the NBA’s best record since Jan. 1.
THIS AND THAT
▪ The Heat gets irritated when fans/pundits judge Adebayo by his point totals, and here’s another reason you shouldn’t:
76ers players defended by Adebayo shot 8 for 27 in Game 6. In the playoffs, the man he’s guarding is shooting 39.8 percent.
Those same players shoot better than 49 percent against everybody else guarding them.
That 39.8 percent puts Adebayo No. 2 defensively among all centers in postseason, barely behind Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton.
By comparison, Joel Embiid allowed 43.4 percent shooting in this postseason and MVP Nikola Jokic permitted the player he was guarding to shoot 50 percent
▪ Max Strus on Thursday joined Moses Malone as the only undrafted players in NBA history to produce 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists in a playoff game, per Stathead.
▪ After Game 6, multiple Heat veterans expressed appreciation for Strus and Gabe Vincent, who have evolved from G League players to rotation pieces on a championship contender.
“They’re not scared of anybody, of any task at any point in the game,” Butler said. “It always helps to have those guys on your side and they are everything that the Miami Heat organization is about.
“They play hard, they’re not selfish in the least bit. And more than anything, they just want to win. Tell them to do something, they’re going to do it and never complain because they know it’s toward winning.”
Butler then looked at Strus and cracked: “Maybe you should have gotten the max contract.”
PJ Tucker said Strus “has gotten so much better from the time we started this year. He’s definitely our most improved. Like he has really stepped up to be a guy that we count on not only just to make shots, but just to be aggressive.
“Even days when he’s not making shots, him being aggressive, teams have to respect it and be up on him. And he’s strong enough and tall enough to be able to guard. ... He loves the challenge. Just to see him step up in all these big moments, it’s pretty special.”
▪ Tucker, who won an NBA championship with the Bucks last season, described this season as “a crazy year, but it’s been a fun year just because we had so much adversity all year. Missing guys for a number of games, playing with G League players coming up. We had so many lineups and so many things.
And being able to withstand and be a top-three team in the East all year. To now get to this point… was my reason for coming here. This is the reason I came to the Heat.”
▪ Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Finals will air on ABC, with the other games on ESPN, and Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson calling all the games. Tipoff is just after 8:30 for all the games.
Mike Greenberg, Stephen A. Smith, Jalen Rose and Michael Wilbon host the pregame shows (an hour for the ESPN games; a half hour for the ABC games) from the arena. The draft lottery will precede Game 1 on Tuesday.
This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 10:16 PM.
