Entering their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks, one of the biggest questions for top-ranked Miami Heat was how they would create a consistent attack at the end of the game. Miami finished the regular season, ranked 24th in the clutch violation and 21st in the fourth quarter violation. They blew up the Hawks in Game 1, so it didn’t matter.
The game 2 Heat answers some questions.
Jimmy Butler was relentless with 45 points and took full control at the end. Every time the Hawks – who didn’t play well but managed to stay long enough to have a late chance – pushed, Butler had the answer. After Atlanta reduced Miami’s lead to three by 3:15 before the game, Butler scored seven in a row to bring Miami back 10 with 1:20 left, and Atlanta never returned it to double digits as Heath took the lead with 2- 0 in the series with 115-105 victory.
How great was Butler, who added five assists and five rebounds? Browse this company:
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Interesting note: Butler was a terrific 3-point scorer in the regular season during his time with Heath (24 percent in his first two seasons and 23 percent this year), but he was much better in the playoffs. He shoots 35 percent deep into the balloon and so far this postseason is 5-or-9 out of 3.
Butler knocked down four of his seven three-pointers on Tuesday and, generally speaking, his aggression as a scorer steadily increased in the post-season with Miami. This trend seems to be continuing.
But before we anoint Butler as a closer need of the heat, let’s consider who he’s doing this to. The Hawks are nothing but terrible defenses.
In my review of this series, I talked about the trade-off between attacking and defending Trey Young and how he can only be positive for Atlanta if Young dominates attack, because his defense completely drowns out Atlanta’s defenses, which are just beginning.
Suffice it to say that Young was not dominant offensively in this series. He finished with eight points in a 1 to 12 shot in Game 1 and had 10 turns and 2 hits against 10 of 3 in Game 2. Honestly, this Atlanta was even at the end of that game when Young played like it was a little miracle.
At the beginning of the game, many strange cannons set off for Atlanta, which turned into “see what I found” buckets. Bogdan Bogdanovic made a bunch of really hard shots – a total of 12 out of 18 and 5 out of 10 out of 3 – to finish with 29 points. There’s no way Atlanta can keep this game close without Gods at all.
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It’s hard for Young to have to be brilliant for Atlanta to have a chance, but that’s the reality. Miami is a better team anywhere on the floor and in every other aspect of the game. Young’s change was a mixture of his own carelessness and soft / lazy passes and the relentless pressure of Miami. The heat is all over him with dimensions and switches and he always sees bodies sinking into his lanes. Miami mixes the coatings, sporadically twisting traps.
Young entered Game 2 more efficiently, finishing with 25 points and seven assists, while making eight of his 10 shots from inside the arc. He found some rhythm of jumping with some midrangers. But one of the biggest jumps Young made was reducing his bad threes, and on Tuesday, anxious and hurried, he pulled out a bunch of bad 3 points.
Again, he finished 2 out of 10 beyond the rainbow. The Hawks will not win many games when Young shoots 20 percent of 3 and makes 10 turns, especially not against No. 1 in the playoffs. So now Atlanta is heading home for what is essentially a must-win in Game 3 on Friday. We’ll see what battle remains for the Hawks.
The Miami Heat are two wins away from a place in the semifinals of the Eastern Conference. Jimmy Butler was fantastic on Tuesday night, finishing the victory in the Heat with a record 45 points and now they are in the place of the driver in this series as a result. Match 3 will take place on Friday night in Atlanta as the Hawks try to avoid being pushed to the edge of their lives after the season.
Trey Young finished with 25 points and seven assists, but did not play well, as evidenced by his 10 turns. After all, Atlanta was and is simply surpassed if Young was not great, which he was not at all. Hawks will have to try to understand things at home if they want to turn this into a competitive series.
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