Game 63: Wed, 3/2 Heat @ MIL (&IggieCC) 8:00 PM EST

[AirP.]

Spoiler:

All the Heat shooters were lighting it up, Duncan, Strus, Vincent and Herro but still wasn't enough without Jimmy playing well

Butler was horrible shooting last night and put Miami in a hole overall but the 4th quarter meltdown was way more then Butler being bad so I decided to go back and watch the 14 point meltdown when Butler came in, Butler wasn't actively looking to score and only took 1 shot and had a TO on a shot clock violation where got the ball late but 1 shot and had 1 TO when he got the ball late in the shot clock, the rest were everyone else Miami had 13 possessions, scored 6 points(3 of 8 from the field) and had 4 TOs(Herro 3, Butler 1) and of course the TO/Steal from not being able to cleanly getting a ball passed in late and Butler having to jump against Giannis.

Looking late in the game(I don't have a replay of the game, going by the play by play video from NBA.com).

6:29 Butler subs in (113-99)
H- (Miss) Heat out of bounds has to go to Herro with 2 seconds left on the shot clock for a tough but necessary 3, miss but highly understandable.
B- (2pts)Bucks go to Giannis in the low post vs Butler, Miami tries to swarm him but he does a small spin and goes straight up and dunks it.
H- (Miss)Bam isolates with Portis and misses a jumper in the lane.
B- (2pts)Holiday drives with little intentions/chance to make the shot but Giannis follows for the put back score.
H- (TO)Herro brings the ball down and a lazy pass to Bam is stolen by Portis, I get tougher defense down the stretch but make some type of real effort to make a good pass.
B- Portis makes 1 of 2 FTs.
H- (TO)Butler shot clock violation. What a bad possession, Herro gets the ball with 17 seconds on the shot clock, dribbles and probes for 10 seconds and then passes it to Strus with 5 seconds on the shot clock, Strus goes up to shoot but doesn't have a clean look so mid shot dumps it to Butler with 4.2 seconds left, he then goes to the high post for a turn around shot and gets a shot clock violation(he also missed the shot).
B- (3pts)Holiday brings the ball down and hits an open 3. Butler is initially picked by Giannis, Butler goes over the pick while Middleton who picks Bam but Bam doesn't aggressively fighting through the pick and actually seems surprised with no switch and tries to recover. A good play call by the Bucks and they will use it again but differently.
H- (Miss)Butler misses an open jumper 2 feet behind the FT line.
B- (Miss)Porter misses a Butler contested 3.
H- (2pts)Bam goes into the low post and scores with a hook shot. Another interesting play because Butler passes the ball to Bam then goes to set a pick for Herro to get an open shot on the strong side. Since Bam was already in the low post Herro breaks off the play(which is fine) but the play looked to have Bam #1 option, Herro #2 option.
-B (Miss)Middleton misses and PJ Tucker contested 3.
-H (Miss)Vincent takes a fading to the baseline 3 in the corner that hits the top of the backboard with 7 seconds left on the shot clock. Terrible shot since he wasn't close to squaring up.
-B (2pts)Bucks run the same play that gave Holiday a 3 recently but this time aren't looking for a Holiday 3, both the Bucks and Heat decided to handle the play differently, Butler gets picked by Giannis again but goes under allowing Bam the ability to leave Giannis to contest if Holiday takes a 3 but that's not happening. Middleton picks Gabe(guarding Holiday) and he fights through, Holiday just dribbles closer and with Gabe on him, just shoots about 5-7 feet out over Gabe(NBA.com says 15 feet, they're wrong, he's 2-3 feet outside the arc under the basket).
H- (TO)Herro brings the ball up, Mathews tries to poke it from Herro, does poke it away, Herro is able to use his left hand to knock it down to control it but swings his right arm/hand and bats it into the back court for a TO. It sucks but this wasn't because of Herro being lazy, just unfortunate after Herro got control of the ball again.
B- (2pts)BIG PLAY/LUCKY Play Giannis air balls or barely touches the rim on a turn around jumper over Bam(so not in rebounding position). Now this is where luck comes into play, Butler isn't in front of Middleton on the other side of the basket but puts his arm out to block him out, Portis behind Middleton actually pushes Middleton which stutter steps him forward through the Butler block out enabling him to catch the miss and throw up a reverse shot which misses(which he had to put up or he may have walked, still off balanced from being pushed by Portis), Butler and Tucker both were going for the missed shot with their momentum but since Portis pushed off, his momentum had stopped and was by himself for a tip in of Middleton's wild miss. Watching the play something didn't look right about Middleton's movement and Portis just stopping, had to keep rewatching this to actually see what was going on since it happened so quickly.
H- (Miss)Bam attacks the basket and passes it out to Tucker, the pass is low and to Tucker's left, he does get the shot off and it's contested by Portis... miss.
B- (2pts)Bam fouls Giannis, he makes both FTs.
H- (2pts)Herro gets the ball and a pick from Butler, goes to the other side of the lane and hits a 16 foot jumper over Mathews.
B- (2pts)Middleton from the arc passes to Giannis in the low post, Butler doubles and fouls Giannis when he's passing out to a wide open Middleton. Giannis makes both FTs again.
H- (2pts)Bam goes into the lane and hits a 13 foot jumper.
B- (Miss)Giannis missed a finger roll.
16.8 seconds left 118-114
H- (TO)Herro makes a lazy pass through a double team that is stolen by Portis.
B- (3pts)Middleton brings the ball up and hits an uncontested open 3.
H- 2 horrible tires to inbound the ball, leading to a jump ball between Butler and Giannis.
B- Giannis wins tip, Holiday just drives in and shoots over Gabe(who went for the flop vs just play defense) for a layup.
H- Disgusted Gabe doesn't look down court in hopes of an open teammate and just gives the ball to Herro for a 3/4 court heave.

https://www.nba.com/game/mia-vs-mil-0022100936/play-by-play?period=Q4

There's a lot to learn from that meltdown that should help this team come playoff time.

I figured if I'm going to go through the last half of the 4th quarter I might as well post it.

[IggieCC]

Spoiler:

Butler was horrible shooting last night and put Miami in a hole overall but the 4th quarter meltdown was way more then Butler being bad so I decided to go back and watch the 14 point meltdown when Butler came in, Butler wasn't actively looking to score and only took 1 shot and had a TO on a shot clock violation where got the ball late but 1 shot and had 1 TO when he got the ball late in the shot clock, the rest were everyone else Miami had 13 possessions, scored 6 points(3 of 8 from the field) and had 4 TOs(Herro 3, Butler 1) and of course the TO/Steal from not being able to cleanly getting a ball passed in late and Butler having to jump against Giannis.

Looking late in the game(I don't have a replay of the game, going by the play by play video from NBA.com).

6:29 Butler subs in (113-99)
H- (Miss) Heat out of bounds has to go to Herro with 2 seconds left on the shot clock for a tough but necessary 3, miss but highly understandable.
B- (2pts)Bucks go to Giannis in the low post vs Butler, Miami tries to swarm him but he does a small spin and goes straight up and dunks it.
H- (Miss)Bam isolates with Portis and misses a jumper in the lane.
B- (2pts)Holiday drives with little intentions/chance to make the shot but Giannis follows for the put back score.
H- (TO)Herro brings the ball down and a lazy pass to Bam is stolen by Portis, I get tougher defense down the stretch but make some type of real effort to make a good pass.
B- Portis makes 1 of 2 FTs.
H- (TO)Butler shot clock violation. What a bad possession, Herro gets the ball with 17 seconds on the shot clock, dribbles and probes for 10 seconds and then passes it to Strus with 5 seconds on the shot clock, Strus goes up to shoot but doesn't have a clean look so mid shot dumps it to Butler with 4.2 seconds left, he then goes to the high post for a turn around shot and gets a shot clock violation(he also missed the shot).
B- (3pts)Holiday brings the ball down and hits an open 3. Butler is initially picked by Giannis, Butler goes over the pick while Middleton who picks Bam but Bam doesn't aggressively fighting through the pick and actually seems surprised with no switch and tries to recover. A good play call by the Bucks and they will use it again but differently.
H- (Miss)Butler misses an open jumper 2 feet behind the FT line.
B- (Miss)Porter misses a Butler contested 3.
H- (2pts)Bam goes into the low post and scores with a hook shot. Another interesting play because Butler passes the ball to Bam then goes to set a pick for Herro to get an open shot on the strong side. Since Bam was already in the low post Herro breaks off the play(which is fine) but the play looked to have Bam #1 option, Herro #2 option.
-B (Miss)Middleton misses and PJ Tucker contested 3.
-H (Miss)Vincent takes a fading to the baseline 3 in the corner that hits the top of the backboard with 7 seconds left on the shot clock. Terrible shot since he wasn't close to squaring up.
-B (2pts)Bucks run the same play that gave Holiday a 3 recently but this time aren't looking for a Holiday 3, both the Bucks and Heat decided to handle the play differently, Butler gets picked by Giannis again but goes under allowing Bam the ability to leave Giannis to contest if Holiday takes a 3 but that's not happening. Middleton picks Gabe(guarding Holiday) and he fights through, Holiday just dribbles closer and with Gabe on him, just shoots about 5-7 feet out over Gabe(NBA.com says 15 feet, they're wrong, he's 2-3 feet outside the arc under the basket).
H- (TO)Herro brings the ball up, Mathews tries to poke it from Herro, does poke it away, Herro is able to use his left hand to knock it down to control it but swings his right arm/hand and bats it into the back court for a TO. It sucks but this wasn't because of Herro being lazy, just unfortunate after Herro got control of the ball again.
B- (2pts)BIG PLAY/LUCKY Play Giannis air balls or barely touches the rim on a turn around jumper over Bam(so not in rebounding position). Now this is where luck comes into play, Butler isn't in front of Middleton on the other side of the basket but puts his arm out to block him out, Portis behind Middleton actually pushes Middleton which stutter steps him forward through the Butler block out enabling him to catch the miss and throw up a reverse shot which misses(which he had to put up or he may have walked, still off balanced from being pushed by Portis), Butler and Tucker both were going for the missed shot with their momentum but since Portis pushed off, his momentum had stopped and was by himself for a tip in of Middleton's wild miss. Watching the play something didn't look right about Middleton's movement and Portis just stopping, had to keep rewatching this to actually see what was going on since it happened so quickly.
H- (Miss)Bam attacks the basket and passes it out to Tucker, the pass is low and to Tucker's left, he does get the shot off and it's contested by Portis... miss.
B- (2pts)Bam fouls Giannis, he makes both FTs.
H- (2pts)Herro gets the ball and a pick from Butler, goes to the other side of the lane and hits a 16 foot jumper over Mathews.
B- (2pts)Middleton from the arc passes to Giannis in the low post, Butler doubles and fouls Giannis when he's passing out to a wide open Middleton. Giannis makes both FTs again.
H- (2pts)Bam goes into the lane and hits a 13 foot jumper.
B- (Miss)Giannis missed a finger roll.
16.8 seconds left 118-114
H- (TO)Herro makes a lazy pass through a double team that is stolen by Portis.
B- (3pts)Middleton brings the ball up and hits an uncontested open 3.
H- 2 horrible tires to inbound the ball, leading to a jump ball between Butler and Giannis.
B- Giannis wins tip, Holiday just drives in and shoots over Gabe(who went for the flop vs just play defense) for a layup.
H- Disgusted Gabe doesn't look down court in hopes of an open teammate and just gives the ball to Herro for a 3/4 court heave.

https://www.nba.com/game/mia-vs-mil-0022100936/play-by-play?period=Q4

There's a lot to learn from that meltdown that should help this team come playoff time.

I figured if I'm going to go through the last half of the 4th quarter I might as well post it.

Thanks P

[gom]

That was a hard loss with some true boneheaded play at the end.

[harlem_ball]

Many excuses.

Sigh.

Just win, baby.

Heat got boss-rushed to submission.

[harlem_ball]

That was a hard loss with some true boneheaded play at the end.

Maybe they got tired at the end from their small balls. Dunno.

[Shewasfly]

Read on Twitter

Shouldn’t have came to this either way.

It shouldn't, but it was a foul. If they are still doing thay stupid 2 minute report, I would be interested in seeing that.

Lol 2 minute report. They don’t give 2 flying ducks about the 2 minute report. It is all one big pretense to give the impression the referees are evaluated and held accountable, when in reality their call behavior in many selective games seems to be by design to influence the outcome.

I don’t even care about that dumb ass report. The refs blatantly cheat the Heat and just documenting and memorializing the cheating doesn’t help. More than likely anyway, they will just admit that they blew calls that lost us the game, but also find ticky tack calls that they can say they missed on us, to pretend the horrible refereeing evened out.

[IceColdCubano]

one play that stood out to me was when Middletown got the offensive rebound form Giannis miss and he just hoisted the ball up without looking at the rim for Portis' put back. that was epitome of small vs big

Offensive rebounding and put backs are back breakers in a series where both teams are equal. The bigger team will 90% of the time have an advantage over the other team in the closing minutes. The only thing that kills a big team is an efficient offense, and killer 3pt shooting, which is why we struggle at crunch time, our offense slows down we can't score, we also cannot defend the opponent outside of a weakside block, or steal from our smaller faster small ball setup ( our legs are also spent from guarding bigger stronger opponents so our jump shoots are going to be very marginal.) That's why in closing games the better your half court and shot creation in ISO will always beat out the other team. We don't have the ISO scorer that we can go to to go get us a bucket, Hero can get there but he isn't there yet. Our half court scoring by committee needs to be on point. Problem is our top 2 stars (Jimmy, Bam) in the closing lineups do not have reliable jumpers. The other support ( PJ, and or Duncan ) can only shoot if assisted and open. Lowry & Hero are the only ones capable of scoring off the bounce and break the defense down (Hero, is still slightly green and capable of mistakes like we saw last night). so Lowry is really the only guy who can get us out of a pinch in a close game with clock winding down.

Last night's small ball created a big lead by middle of the 4th quarter, it took really 5 TOs(4 TOs and a jump ball) in just under 7 minutes for Milwaukee to win by 1. Small ball was working and if a lot of things didn't go right for the Bucks at home, they would have still lost the game.

That miss by Giannis, how lucky was it that Portis pushed off on Middleton enabling Middleton to get the rebound off an airball, still off balance having to throw up a reverse layup before he traveled to end up going to Portis who hadn't moved since pushing off on Middleton for an easy put back.

At 16.8 seconds left in the game Miami was up by 4 had the ball and then a bad pass out of a double team led to a pull up 3pt the other way using VERY little time.

Basically most everything had to go wrong for Miami while Milwaukee had to have nearly everything go right with a little luck tossed in to win by one.

Small ball was working, Miami just lost by 1 on the road to a true contender with a MVP caliber player. A missed opportunity but Miami put themselves in position to win that game.

Like I always tell everyone, context matters. You make some great points, but lets dive into the little details.
Early in the game our small ball was not working, The bucks were hitting what seemed like all their shots. The time stamp you are talking about in the middle of the fourth quarter, our small ball was working yes, how: The bucks were missing, we ran down the court off their misses and rammed down their throats and kept them on their heels without being able to setup their wall defense. We were also hitting our shots, which allowed us to play good defense on the other end without letting them catch us on our heels in turn. Nothing is scarier than Their 7ft star on a fast break down the lane for a dunk. When we stopped making shots, and they started their running game, and they were able to lock down the paint to wall us out we were neutralized. Now given, all it would of taken to win this game was one less turnover or one more put back or score, in the grand scheme of things. I do believe in the last 2 minutes of a game when both teams go to leave it all on the court, the taller, stronger team usually comes out on top unless you have all time great scorer who is unstoppable, which we don't.

[MHeat0279]

one play that stood out to me was when Middletown got the offensive rebound form Giannis miss and he just hoisted the ball up without looking at the rim for Portis' put back. that was epitome of small vs big

Offensive rebounding and put backs are back breakers in a series where both teams are equal. The bigger team will 90% of the time have an advantage over the other team in the closing minutes. The only thing that kills a big team is an efficient offense, and killer 3pt shooting, which is why we struggle at crunch time, our offense slows down we can't score, we also cannot defend the opponent outside of a weakside block, or steal from our smaller faster small ball setup ( our legs are also spent from guarding bigger stronger opponents so our jump shoots are going to be very marginal.) That's why in closing games the better your half court and shot creation in ISO will always beat out the other team. We don't have the ISO scorer that we can go to to go get us a bucket, Hero can get there but he isn't there yet. Our half court scoring by committee needs to be on point. Problem is our top 2 stars (Jimmy, Bam) in the closing lineups do not have reliable jumpers. The other support ( PJ, and or Duncan ) can only shoot if assisted and open. Lowry & Hero are the only ones capable of scoring off the bounce and break the defense down (Hero, is still slightly green and capable of mistakes like we saw last night). so Lowry is really the only guy who can get us out of a pinch in a close game with clock winding down.

Last night's small ball created a big lead by middle of the 4th quarter, it took really 5 TOs(4 TOs and a jump ball) in just under 7 minutes for Milwaukee to win by 1. Small ball was working and if a lot of things didn't go right for the Bucks at home, they would have still lost the game.

That miss by Giannis, how lucky was it that Portis pushed off on Middleton enabling Middleton to get the rebound off an airball, still off balance having to throw up a reverse layup before he traveled to end up going to Portis who hadn't moved since pushing off on Middleton for an easy put back.

At 16.8 seconds left in the game Miami was up by 4 had the ball and then a bad pass out of a double team led to a pull up 3pt the other way using VERY little time.

Basically most everything had to go wrong for Miami while Milwaukee had to have nearly everything go right with a little luck tossed in to win by one.

Small ball was working, Miami just lost by 1 on the road to a true contender with a MVP caliber player. A missed oppertunity but Miami put themselves in position to win that game.

And still this is not the main reason we lost the game, Miami just can not have long stretches without scoring the basketball, besides all the mistakes we made, being lack of experience ( Herro) we could have won the game by simply keeping scoring or getting to the free throw line, this is not a new sickness, we have been the same since forever.

[MHeat0279]

It shouldn't, but it was a foul. If they are still doing thay stupid 2 minute report, I would be interested in seeing that.

Lol 2 minute report. They don’t give 2 flying ducks about the 2 minute report. It is all one big pretense to give the impression the referees are evaluated and held accountable, when in reality their call behavior in many selective games seems to be by design to influence the outcome.

I don’t even care about that dumb ass report. The refs blatantly cheat the Heat and just documenting and memorializing the cheating doesn’t help. More than likely anyway, they will just admit that they blew calls that lost us the game, but also find ticky tack calls that they can say they missed on us, to pretend the horrible refereeing evened out.

At some point in the game Bucks were kept in the game just by freethrows, hughe disparity in yesterday's free throws stats.

[fishfuego.]

It shouldn't, but it was a foul. If they are still doing thay stupid 2 minute report, I would be interested in seeing that.

Lol 2 minute report. They don’t give 2 flying ducks about the 2 minute report. It is all one big pretense to give the impression the referees are evaluated and held accountable, when in reality their call behavior in many selective games seems to be by design to influence the outcome.

I don’t even care about that dumb ass report. The refs blatantly cheat the Heat and just documenting and memorializing the cheating doesn’t help. More than likely anyway, they will just admit that they blew calls that lost us the game, but also find ticky tack calls that they can say they missed on us, to pretend the horrible refereeing evened out.

One of the main, if not the main reason I’ve lost just about all the enthusiastic love I once had for this league. There was a time when everything was pure competition I’m my eyes, but the more you hang around, there more clear the chit becomes. The manipulation of just about everything from targeting teams and players, from favoring teams and players, from adjusting league salary caps to stop a particular team, to punishing physical players such as Shaq to extremely protecting finesse players such as MJ, to rewarding number one draft picks, back to back to back, to selected team while other team gets chit, to a commissioner blatantly telling everyone that there is skeletons hidden in the closet if things are not done his way, to betting on games ( this right here is the biggest undisclosed secret of all) etc etc etc.

Far from an innocent simple sporting event. But hey, here we are, until we’re not lol.

[AirP.]

No matter the outcome was last night, Miami did show they had more then enough to compete with a team some think will make the finals this year and hopefully with the loss they see some things they can utilize for the playoffs this year.

[AirP.]

Read on Twitter

[somerandomdude]

Read on Twitter

NBA inventing ways to show much they hate the Heat without actually saying they hate the Heat.

That was absolutely a foul.

[IggieCC]

LMAO

[MorbidHEAT]

Read on Twitter

Lol...ok

[Unique]

Am I the only one who sees a knee on Gianni's privates? Should have been a T1 on Jimmy. That was beyond physical. Cannot believe the refs allowed it.

[TroubleS0me]

Watch on YouTube

[Shewasfly]

Watch on YouTube

I tried to listen but turned it off after 6 seconds. Why does he sound like that and why is he being so dramatic lmao

[TroubleS0me]

Watch on YouTube

I tried to listen but turned it off after 6 seconds. Why does he sound like that and why is he being so dramatic lmao

[TroubleS0me]

Watch on YouTube

I tried to listen but turned it off after 6 seconds. Why does he sound like that and why is he being so dramatic lmao

check this one

Watch on YouTube