The Miami Heat barely made the playoffs, but now they are one win away from returning to the Eastern Conference Finals after beating the New York Knicks, 109-101. Jimmy Butler authored another efficient and productive performance with a team-high 27 points on 9-17 field goal shooting, a team-high 10 assists, six rebounds, two steals, and two blocked shots. Butler may not receive any All-NBA First Team votes this season, but if the NBA had an All-Playoffs First Team he would be on it in 2023. Bam Adebayo had a strong performance inside (23 points, game-high 13 rebounds), Max Strus provided outside firepower (16 points on 6-13 field goal shooting, including 4-10 from three point range), and Kyle Lowry continued to do an excellent job running the second unit (15 points, five rebounds, four assists).
The Knicks received strong performances from their three top players, but the rest of the team wilted under the Florida sun. Jalen Brunson had a game-high 32 points on 10-21 field goal shooting, and he ran the offense smoothly with a game-high 11 assists and just one turnover. R.J. Barrett added 24 points on 9-16 field goal shooting, bouncing back from his subpar game three outing (14 points on 5-16 field goal shooting). Julius Randle has struggled mightily throughout the 2023 playoffs after averaging a career-high 25.1 ppg during the regular season, but he had his best shooting game of this postseason (8-13), finishing with 20 points and nine rebounds before fouling out. The other Knicks combined to score just 25 points on 10-26 field goal shooting (.385).
In my game three recap, I concluded, "The Heat are missing Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, and Jimmy Butler is not at full strength, but every Heat player plays hard on every possession, and that has been the biggest difference in this series." Herro was the Heat's third leading scorer during the regular season (20.1 ppg), and Oladipo made valuable contributions off of the bench, but when players get injured the Heat make no excuses and they don't change the way that they play. "Next man up" is a cliche that every team adopts as a slogan when dealing with injuries, but the Heat live up to that notion, and they do it with several players who were not high profile prospects prior to being found and nurtured by the Heat. The Heat do not tank to get high draft picks; they scout for players who have potential, and then they develop that potential. What a novel and refreshing concept in an era when so many teams think that it is desirable and necessary to "tank to the top" (even though the evidence proves that tanking does not work).
The Heat and Knicks both were not particularly impressive-looking squads during the regular season, but the Heat are finding their stride while the Knicks are realizing that a tough, playoff-tested team poses a much different challenge than an inexperienced team such as the Cleveland team that they dispatched in the first round.