Miami Heat finds ‘beauty of the struggle’ in win over Knicks for commanding 3-1 series lead | Opinion
The game was never in anyone’s command. Nobody made a huge run, or enjoyed a commanding lead. Miami led almost all of the game, but never with any comfort or cause to exhale.
Heat-Knicks Game 4 was tightrope-taut Monday night in the downtown bayside arena because both sides knew the stakes.
This was the result that would swing this NBA playoff series hugely in Miami’s favor — or give the home-court advantage and the lean of the outcome back to to New York.
Just about everything depended on who won, including how much Spike Lee might enjoy his flight home.
Heat, 109-101.
Heat up 3-1.
“We found the value and the struggle of the regular season in this win,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “If we didn’t have the regular season, there is zero chance we can do this in the playoffs. It’s the beauty of the struggle.”
Miami now has three chances to get one more win and return to the Eastern Conference finals.
Sorry, Spike.
Jimmy Butler and his lavender sneaks led Miami with 27 points (if that didn’t go without saying), and he also had 10 assists. But the player of the game for the Heat was Bam Adebayo.
“Those two are the top of the food chain in terms of two-way competitors,” Spoelstra said. “They’re doing all the dirty work, and all the glamour work, too.”
From Butler you expect it every night. Not as consistently from Adebayo.
This was the Bam you want. The one you keep looking for. During one of those offensive lulls of his. When you wonder if the ceiling for him has been reached. When you hope there’s more.
Adebayo scored 23 on 10-for-17 shooting Monday and had 13 rebounds. Six of his baskets were dunks.
This was a workingman’s victory in which the Heat won the boards, 44 rebounds to 35. And got 125 points combined off the bench from Kyle Lowry and Caleb Martin.
“Pivotal game” is one of those carelessly overused phrases by fans and journalists in sports. It is almost as annoying as calling a game a “must-win” when it is not literally that.
Monday’s night’s Heat-Knicks game in their NBA second-round playoff series was not a must-win, but it most certainly was a result on which the tone and feel of the series — who had the advantage — would be determined.
A 2-1 series lead in a best-of-7 series is just that important, especially when the trailing team is the favored one and is trying to get its home-court advantage back, like the Knicks were.
The stakes:
With the 3-1 series lead Miami was after and earned, teams across NBA history have won 264 of 277 all-time series, or 95.3 percent. Since 1984 with the current 2-2-1-1-1 format, teams up 3-1 have won 176 of 185 times, or 95.1 percent. The Heat in its history is 15-0 when leading a series 3-1. You know that percentage.
At the 2-2 ledger the Knicks were after, everything flips drastically. Teams even through four games since 1984 are exactly even at 157-157 on advancing or not. But teams that lose Game 4 at home and face two of the potential next three on the road, a situation Miami faced, are 6-16 moving forward since ‘84, a 27.3 percent success rate. Miami when tied 2-2 is 8-7 all-time on getting through.
In other words, the win Monday leaves Miami in great shape and able to clinch in Game 5 Wednesday at Madison Square Garden.
A loss and New York would have been even with two of the potential last three games at home.
Some say the NBA regular season hardly matters; that it all starts in the playoffs.
Spoelstra is not a proponent.
“During the regular season you work through the struggles and find the solutions,” he said.
Now the Heat has vanquished No. 1 seed Milwaukee and moved within one win of doing the same to the favored Knicks.
NBA history says Miami has a 95 percent chance now.
That is what Monday night meant.
This story was originally published May 8, 2023 at 10:13 PM.
