Miami Heat beats Bucks in Game 1 with bigger goal in mind: Wooing Giannis Antetokounmpo | Opinion
What tipped off Monday night for the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks felt bigger than a second-round NBA Eastern Conference playoff series.
It feels like the next week-plus of games could shape what happens next summer for the Heat and help steer this franchise’s future.
It feels like the perfect stage to commence the recruitment Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Milwaukee’s young 6-11 superstar will be a free agent next summer, and if Milwaukee can’t keep him no team among his many suitors will go harder after him than whale-hunting Pat Riley and Miami. The Heat can’t say that out loud. It would be called tampering. But I can say it. (I think I just did).
And what better platform for the Heat to impress and woo the “Greek Freak” than in a high-stakes, head-to-head playoff series? It is the perfect chance for Miami to put on display all of the elements of Heat culture, family and drive. Not to mention a showcase of the talent Antetokounmpo might be imagining as his future teammates.
If Game 1 on Monday was an indication, this will be a long series. It was a night that fortified the idea Miami can go step-for-step and eye-to-eye with the team that has the best regular-season record in the league. The idea that a shocking upset wouldn’t really be that shocking at all.
Miami 115, Milwaukee 104.
Jimmy Butler, career playoff-high 40 points, in a performance that whispered, “Meet me in Miami, Giannis?”
And the godfather, Riley, was in the Orlando bubble watching, behind a purple facemask, the first time he has traveled to see his team this postseason.
The win meant the Heat is now 3-1 vs. the Bucks this season, the only team to beat Milwaukee three times.
Butler took over the game but Goran Dragic added 27 points and Bam Adebayo hauled 17 rebounds and helped limit Antetokounmpo to 18 points, well off his 30.7 average.
In the bigger aim of wooing Antetokounmpo, Miami can offer all-star support in Butler and Adebayo, rising talents such as Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson, a still-great Dragic, young veteran Jae Crowder, a deep bench, a top-tier coach in Erik Spoelstra, a championship pedigree, great ownership, a vibrant city with no snow, no state sales tax. Oh, and the godfather with all of those rings.
Plus the salary-cap space to afford this whale of whales.
That’s a ton. There will be great fallback options for Miami in a 2021 free agent class that looks loaded, but the No. 1 target is in this series that finds Miami trying to advance to its first eastern finals since 2014, and Milwaukee trying to win its first NBA title since (oh my) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1971.
Antetokounmpo in turn is angling for his second league MVP trophy at age 25. He just was named Defensive Player of the Year, only the fifth man to collect both awards in his career.
I predicted on ESPN Radio last week the Heat would win this series in an upset -- a major upset considering Milwaukee had the NBA’s best regular-season record. But not so major an upset if you consider Miami was 2-1 vs. the Bucks in the regular season, playing two of those games without Butler. And if you recall how Adebayo has fairly neutralized Antetokounmpo.
Adebayo had limited limited him to 42.9 percent shooting against his season average of 55.3 percent entering Monday’s game. Miami also is an excellent three-point shooting team, and the Bucks allowed the most attempted three-pointers ’s in the league.
Miami after a first-round sweep of Indiana also entered this series with a week’s rest — ironically thanks largely to the Bucks, whose boycott last week touched off three days’ pause in the playoffs to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, 45 minutes from Milwaukee.
Further, with the playoffs all happening in the Orlando bubble, the Bucks and other teams with home-court advantage do not enjoy the actual edge they worked all season to earn.
It all added up to the notion Miami had, and has, a great shot in this series.
Monday night did nothing but stoke the idea.
And the prize Antetokounmpo was right there, and eyewitness to it all.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 9:45 PM.
