There will be playoffs instead of lottery for the Miami Heat, as they punched their ticket into the first round with a 102-91 victory Friday night over the Chicago Bulls at the Kaseya Center.
The payoff? A best-of-seven series against the Eastern Conference No. 1-seeded Milwaukee Bucks for Erik Spoelstra’s team, starting Sunday at Fiserv Forum.
As has been typical, the Heat did it the hard way, blowing an early 14-point lead and then 10-point third-quarter lead.
But from six down in the fourth, Jimmy Butler helped save the day, with some of his postseason best on a night that started with decidedly less than his postseason best, the Heat closing it out with a 15-1 run.
With Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro off with their offense, and Kyle Lowry forced to sit by recurring knee pain, the Heat found themselves in another clutch game, this time with everything at stake in the winner-take-all game in the play-in round.
No matter how achieved, even with having to settle for the No. 8 seed and battling through two games in a play-in round, Spoelstra said the goal of playoffs has been seized, and that’s what matters.
“Our team,” Spoelstra said, “has obviously not been perfect this year. But I do know one thing about the men in that locker room: The last 48 hours, I know how categorically, unequivocally, how badly and desperately our group wanted to get into this damn thing, to get into the playoffs and have an opportunity to compete for a damn title.”
So on to the playoffs for the Heat, end of season for the Bulls.
Butler, on an 11-of-24 night from the field, closed with 31 points. Max Strus, the Heat’s lone reliable 3-point threat on this night, also scored 31, at 7 of 12 from beyond the arc.
While Adebayo was limited to eight points on 1-of-9 shooting, he closed with 17 rebounds. And while Herro was 0 for 5 on 3-pointers, he still filled the box score, with 12 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
DeMar DeRozan led the Bulls with 26 points.
“It feels like we’re in round two already and we just earned the right to start the playoffs,” Spoelstra said.
Five Degrees of Heat from Friday’s game:
1. Closing time: The Heat went up 14 early, then took a 29-21 lead into the second period, moving to a 49-44 halftime advantage. But after the Heat went up 10 early in the third, the Bulls entered the fourth up 68-67.
This time there was no pacing with Butler, Spoelstra rushing him back in off the bench with 9:51 to play, far earlier than typical.
From there, a DeRozan three-point play moved Chicago to its largest lead to that stage, an 81-75 advantage with 8:27 to play.
A Butler layup later moved the Heat within 82-80 with 6:43 to play, only to be countered by a Coby White 3-pointer.
Butler later drew the Heat within 85-83 with a three-point play and then fed Strus for a driving layup and 85-85 tie with 5:01 remaining, Strus’ first points of the second half.
But with DeRozan and Coby White draining 3-pointers, the Heat found themselves down 90-87 with 3:45 remaining.
Herro then made it a one-point game with a 15-foot jumper with 2:54 to play, with Butler following by twisting and turning his way to a layup and 91-90 Heat lead with 2:17 left.
Two Adebayo free throws with 1:41 remaining followed for a 93-90 Heat lead.
A DeRozan 3-pointer got the Bulls within one, but Strus then drained his seventh 3-pointer for a 96-91 lead, with three Strus free throws following on a three-shot foul for a 99-91 lead, effectively ending it.
“Honestly,” Butler said, “that’s the way that we’ve been playing basketball all year long. When the games get close, we find a way.”
2. What’s next: The path, and indeed, the road, gets far tougher now than the 40-42 Bulls and the 41-41 Atlanta Hawks in this play-in round, with the 58-24 Bucks up next.
The Heat went 2-2 against the Bucks this season, with the wins coming in Miami when Giannis Antetokounmpo was sidelined. Otherwise there were two blowout losses in Milwaukee.
While the turnaround will be quick, with a 5:30 p.m. Eastern tip Sunday (4:30 p.m. Milwaukee time), there then will be a two-day break before Game 2 Wednesday in Milwaukee.
The series then moves to Miami for Game 3 and 4 the following Friday and Monday nights in the 2-2-1-1-1 scheduling.
The Bucks swept the Heat out of the first round 4-0 in 2021 in the teams’ most recent playoff meeting. The Heat, the year before, eliminated the Bucks 4-1 in the second round in the Disney quarantine bubble.
The teams’ only other playoff matchup was when the Heat swept the Bucks in the 2013 first round on the way to the franchise’s third and most recent championship.
“We have great respect for them,” Spoelstra said. “But we feel like we’re Navy SEALS, just drop us off in a parachute and just go compete.”
With Butler leading the assault.
“He just willed it down the stretch,” Spoelstra said.
3. Strus loose: Strus set an early tone by converting his first three 3-point attempts and later appeared to move to 6 of 8 from beyond the arc in the second period.
However, during the ensuing timeout, a Strus 3-pointer was negated when the NBA replay center in Secaucus., N.J., which initiates a review after each 3-pointer, said he stepped out of bounds.
If that sounds familiar it is because the same thing happened to Strus and the Heat in last season’s Game 7 loss in the Eastern Conference finals.
To his credit, Strus then drew a three-shot foul on the Heat’s next possession . . . and after that again moved to 6 of 8 on 3-pointers, in his 23-point first half, already his fifth 20-point game of the season.
It started, Strus said, from seeing the first one going in.
“Every one after that felt good,” he said.
As for having another 3-pointer disallowed, Strus smiled.
“I did it again,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know what the deal is. If I did something wrong to the NBA office, I’m sorry.”
4. Rotation evaluation: Despite Lowry coming off his most productive game of the season and Caleb Martin presenting the option of another wing defender in the starting lineup, Spoelstra remained with a starting lineup of Adebayo, Butler, Herro, Gabe Vincent and Strus.
Instead, it was Lowry as first off the bench, then Martin, then Kevin Love.
That had Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller and Duncan Robinson among those out of the tight Heat mix.
Spoelstra said again starting with Strus made sense.
“You can depend on his competitive character, his competitive toughness,” he said. “Like a lot of our guys,” Spoelstra said, “he has that grit and that perseverance.”
Lowry then asked out in the fourth quarter due to the soreness in his left knee that had him out for a month before a March 11 return.
“Just a little tweak,” Lowry said.
Asked if he would be available Sunday, Lowry said, “I know I am.”
Lowry, 37, has one more season left on his contract, one fully guaranteed for $29.7 million even if limited by injury.
5. Award limitations: Before the game, Butler was announced as a finalist for the new Clutch Player of the Year Award, the Heat’s lone finalist for any of this season’s NBA awards. The other “clutch” finalists are Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox and the Bulls’ DeRozan.
Herro, who won last season’s Sixth Man of the Year, was ineligible because of his starting role this season
Adebayo was bypassed as a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year, with Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr., Milwaukee Bucks center Brook Lopez and Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley the finalists for that award.
The Heat’s lone postseason honor likely will be Butler on one of the three All-NBA teams.
Friday night, he played like that.
“That’s what my team needed me to do, find a way,” he said.
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