Despite missing Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry, the Heat closed out their first-round series on Tuesday, defeating the Hawks and securing a spot in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. They’ll face either Philadelphia or Toronto in the second round.
As Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald writes, the story of the first-round win was Miami’s defense simply performing better than Atlanta’s high-octane offense. After averaging 28.4 points per game on 46.0% shooting during the regular season, Trae Young put up just 15.4 PPG on 31.9% shooting in five playoff games vs. the Heat. Young, who made 22 field goals and had 30 assists in the series while turning the ball over 30 times, couldn’t seem to get going no matter who was defending him.
“They’re a good defensive team,” Young said, per Chiang. “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.”
Here’s more on the Heat:
- Miami’s second-round series won’t begin until next Monday, so Butler (right knee inflammation) and Lowry (left hamstring strain) will have a few days to try to get ready for Game 1. The hope is that both will be available, according to Chiang. “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 after Tuesday’s win. “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.”
- Following the Heat’s Game 4 win, Butler and Victor Oladipo both laughed off a Skip Bayless claim that Butler hates playing with Oladipo (Twitter links via Brady Hawk of 5 Reasons Sports and Chiang). “I’m always the bad guy,” Butler said. “That’s okay. Bad guys are welcome here in the Miami Heat organization. … I love my guys.” Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald referred to the rumor as “baseless” (Twitter link).
- Oladipo’s recent emergence has further diminished Duncan Robinson‘s role and raised more questions about Robinson’s future in Miami, writes John Hollinger of The Athletic. Hollinger published his article prior to Game 5, but Tuesday’s performances only strengthened his thesis — Oladipo had 23 points, while Robinson went scoreless on 0-of-5 shooting in 13 minutes.
Miami got a strong squad no doubt, 1-12. We definitely didn’t get enough from Trae, Nate, Gallo & Kev in this series. And pretty much all of our other main guys were hurt. John, Clint, Lou & eventually Bogdan were all either out or playing thru significant injuries. John couldn’t catch lobs which is obv a huge part of his game & our offense in general. Clint was a shell of himself in the couple games he played. Lou’s whole point of being on the team was to be insurance as a lead guard if Trae/Bogdan are injured or ineffective & he was out the whole postseason. And Spoelstra outcoached Nate similar to how Nate outcoached Thibs in last yrs 1st rd. In fact those 2 series are very similar in numerous ways… The emergence of Dre was great to see. He was obv our best player last night & thruout the series. At the end of the day Miami just bullied us from start to finish tho. Gallo gave us 2 good seasons but he just played his last game in Atl no doubt. Rob Covington/Thad Young/Kyle Anderson all guys that can take his place for a fraction of the $15M we’d save by cuttinghim. & those guys would add some toughness, especially defensively. Delon Wright gotta be back if we can get him for anything less than $10M/yr. The Cam trade hurt but it’s really more complicated than the Hawks just making a bad trade. Cam getting hurt last yr is what gave Kev the starting spot. Kev played well & the Hawks made a short-sighted decision to extend Kev & keep him as the starter which led to Cam demanding a trade. I STRONGLY felt like we should have waited on Kev’s extension & made Cam the starting 2 coming into this yr. Now it just seems obvious… Trae got clamped by a great defensive team & a great defensive coach but I have a feeling he’ll be back & better than ever next season (the 1st of his big $ deal). Hawks future is still extremely bright. As I’ve said before they remind me a lot of the early 90s Phoenix Suns. As some might know those Suns made a big trade for a future HOF 4man named Barkley right after they got ran 4-1 by Clyde & the Blazers in 92. 30yrs later Zion Williamson is gonna be our Barkley
The only thing I foresee is the fact that, even if we waive Gallinari for the 5m, we are still an over the cap team that would only have the MLE to sign a replacement such as Covington or Anderson, which I think they will get most, if not all, of that.
And as far as getting Zion, how do you propose we do that?
I’m a huge Tech fan so I’d rather have Thad tbh but the MLE should be plenty enough to sign 1 of those guys. We should look to add some edge/attitude at 5 with whoever we get to replace Dieng too… if/when Zion asks out of NO, we could offer a package headlined by John Collins, Kevin Huerter & picks with flexibility to add more if necessary
With young and Covington in their later years, I can see them joining a true contender for minimum. As far as anderson, with the success Memphis has had this year, and their cap flexibility, I see him going back to the grizzlies.
For a Zion trade for Collins and Huerter, it doesn’t work financially, because Atlanta will send out 40 million and the pelicans sending out 10 million. I have seen on other trade forums a basis of a trade revolving around Collins and Huerter for Zion, Graham, and Nance. That works out financially, just got to work out the picks.
Not so sure Spoelstra was the story here. Again, he tends to fall asleep on guys he takes out for a break and guys who are on the bench.
I mean, Oladipo has always been a big time player and now with the injuries here, he’s been able to regain form and jog the memories of fans. Going forward, I don’t know what that does for Duncan’s time in Miami
I don’t think the Hawks had an answer for Oladipo’s dribble drives and Bam on the interior.
Will be an interesting series coming up
He did the right things by going to the small lineup, instead of Dedmon at the 5, and he used guys in the right spots in the rotation, outside of game 3 when Lowry went down, but my guess is that was to not put Oladipo in a situation midway. Atlanta never made the adjustments themselves
I gotta say I’m extremely interested to see what Harden can do vs this Miami defense considering how they just shut down Trae… a Mia/Tor series would be even more intriguing tbh
Harden has never done anything in the postseason, and it will be another failure this yr.
Helped his team win the West in literally his 2nd yr in the league & he’s top20 all-time in pts & asts in the playoffs but u say he’s never done anything in the playoffs smh michol go to your room
They were all literally nonimpactful points. Look at last yr how he choked and in Houston every yr.
Im not a big fan of Harden, but the narrative of him being bad in the playoffs its being overblown. He has 15 playoffs series with 25+ PPG averages, only three of them below 40%FG.
In fact, he has averages of -20ppg, outside his stint in OKC where he was a 6man, in ALL of his playoffs series but this one and the last one in BRK when he was injured.
The problem with him is that he is less efficent scoring in the playoffs and lack of big time playoff moments. And ill agree with that. But that doesn’t mean he has never done anything in the postseason.
It’s all relative. He’s a superstar and paid like one. Compare him to OTHER superstars in the league and he has certainly underperformed in the postseason. He has had numerous opportunities to shine, but he has literally never come through. Also hate using injury as an excuse for last yr when he played the whole game. If he had let others take some of his shots, Nets would have won.
Its going to come down to whether or not he gets his usual bailout calls. He typically doesnt get them as often in the playoffs, but he got them last year, so that will be interesting to see. Heat usually guard him well over the years
I’ve said since before the season I dont want to play Toronto. I dont like either of these matchups, but I lean towards slightly preferring philly
Duncan Robinson is still extremely important, especially b/c the Heat’s stars are all versatile defenders/playmakers, but most of them dont shoot it much. Even late in that game 5, Atlanta was chasing him off screens with multiple guys. His spacing is incredibly valuable to this roster. They would need to significantly change the roster for it to make sense to move him, which is potentially doable, but until that scenario happens, it would be hard to speculate on
Delon Wright has played for at least 5 teams in 5 years and makes $8.2m but I think he proved himself in this series… as what IDK. The 3point shooting was not there, but maybe 36% career. He has not been able to find a starting role but defensive specialists are getting popular… Isn’t that and overall decentness enough for a raise?