Takeaways from important Heat win over Pacers, and what it means for East playoff picture
The start of the NBA playoffs is still a week away, but Monday’s game between the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers sure did feel like a postseason game.
There were stakes involved, with the two teams entering the game tied in the Eastern Conference standings.
There was real tension, with all eyes on the Jimmy Butler vs. T.J. Warren matchup after it got heated between the two the last time they met.
And there’s the very real possibility that these two teams could be a seeing a lot more of each other over the next three weeks. If seeding games ended Monday night, the Heat and Pacers would face off in the first round of the playoffs.
In the end, the Heat (44-27) came away from Monday’s tussle with a 114-92 win over the Pacers (43-28) in its sixth of eight seeding games at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami is 3-3 in seeding play, while Indiana fell to 4-2 in seeding games.
Heat’s Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic back from injury, will play Monday vs. Pacers
The Heat received positive news before the game, with Goran Dragic (sprained left ankle) and Butler (right foot soreness) returning from injury for Monday’s contest.
That was just the start of a good night for Miami. The score was tied at halftime, but the Heat outscored the Pacers by 14 points in the third quarter to take control of the game.
Miami’s defense was impressive Monday, limiting Indiana to 92 points on 39.3 percent shooting from the field and 10 of 35 shooting on threes. It was the Heat’s best defensive performance since the season resumed, as it posted a defensive rating of 90.2 against the Pacers.
“It’s out of respect for the opponent,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ve seen how well they’ve been playing in the bubble and our guys really competed particularly on the defensive end and we were able to sustain that.”
Victor Oladipo led Indiana with 14 points.
The Heat has defeated the Pacers in each of the teams’ first three matchups of the season. Miami and Indiana will see each other again soon, as the two teams also face off Friday to close seeding play before possibly matching up again in the playoffs.
Before that, Miami continues its seeding schedule Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder at 8 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun).
Five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Pacers on Monday at the VISA Athletic Center:
Who won Monday’s Butler vs. Warren matchup? Butler, and it wasn’t even close.
The Butler-Warren matchup grew contentious and ended with Warren’s ejection the last time the Heat and Pacers faced off Jan. 8 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Butler and Warren were involved in several contentious confrontations that included a middle finger from Warren directed at Butler and then Butler blowing a kiss goodbye as Warren walked off the floor following his ejection.
“He’s soft. He’s not even in my [expletive] league, nowhere near me,” Butler said of Warren after that January game. “If I was their coach, I would never put him on me ever again. Put somebody else on me, because I’m going to tear his [expletive] up every game.”
That was seven months ago.
What happened Monday? There were no technicals or confrontations this time, but Butler earned the win and turned in the better performance.
“Look, anything right now with the NBA is good. We need this,” Spoelstra said of the Butler-Warren story line. “We need competition. So much of that was just a story line, but who cares. Really, that was months ago. But, hey, we’re out here completing a season and just about on the brink of the playoffs in a global pandemic. It’s just all good right now, the fact that we’re able to do this. If it creates interest because people want that story line, so be it.”
Butler, who missed the previous three games because of a sore right foot, finished with 19 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field and 9-of-11 shooting from the foul line, to go with 11 rebounds, five assists, one block and four steals in 29 minutes.
Warren started 1 of 6 from the field, and he finished with 12 points on 5-of-14 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes.
It was a quiet night for Warren, considering he entered averaging a league-high 34.8 points during seeding games while shooting an incredible 60.5 percent from the field and 55.6 percent on threes in five seeding games. Monday’s 12-point outing is Warren’s lowest single-game point total in the bubble.
“We just made everything tough for him,” Butler said on Fox Sports Sun. “When you go against the Miami Heat, we always have something in our back pocket.”
Butler defended Warren during most of the possessions the two were on the court. But the Pacers opted to use Malcolm Brogdon to defend Butler for most of the game.
The Heat trapped Warren hard on pick-and-rolls, and it worked to get him out of rhythm.
“I could tell they had a good little plan off the ball screens, trapping,” Warren said of how the Heat made it tough on him. “I just got to be able to make adjustments offensively. We had good looks. We just didn’t make them tonight.”
With Butler and Dragic back from injury, the Heat used its 14th different starting lineup of the season and already its fourth different starting lineup in six seeding games.
With usual starting guard Kendrick Nunn still out as he continues his quarantine after re-entering the bubble Sunday, Spoelstra inserted Dragic into the starting lineup. The Heat started Dragic, Butler, Duncan Robinson, Jae Crowder and Bam Adebayo against the Pacers.
This lineup entered Monday with a plus/minus of plus-eight in 30 minutes of court time together this season.
That positive trend continued against the Pacers, with the Heat beginning the game on a 14-7 run before making its first substitution. Miami then began the second half on a 16-6 run before Spoelstra turned to the bench.
This five-man group finished as a plus-17 in 14 minutes on Monday. It’ll be interesting to see if Spoelstra sticks with this lineup even when Nunn returns because it has been effective this season, albeit in a small sample size.
Dragic, who made just his second start of the season Monday, finished with 11 points and nine assists in 30 minutes after missing the previous two games because of a sprained left ankle.
“I feel fine. My legs were a little bit heavy,” Dragic said after the game. “I know that my shots were short. But as long as they were straight, I’m good. I can correct that easy. But in general, I feel good. My wind was there.”
Rookie guard Tyler Herro started in Saturday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns with Butler, Dragic and Nunn out, and he impressed with 25 points, eight rebounds and a career-high 10 assists. But with Butler and Dragic back, Herro returned to his usual bench role against the Pacers.
The Heat’s bench rotation on Monday included Herro, Kelly Olynyk, Andre Iguodala and Derrick Jones Jr before two-way contract guard Gabe Vincent entered in the final minutes.
Jones provided a spark with 18 points on 9-of-11 shooting in 21 minutes. Herro finished with 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, with 10 of his points coming in the fourth quarter.
Miami had seven players finish with double-digit points — Butler (19 points), Jones (18), Herro (17), Robinson (14), Crowder (14), Dragic (11) and Adebayo (10).
“The depth of our team obviously is a big time strength,” Spoelstra said. “The fact that we have a lot of different variety to our offense. But make no mistake about this, Jimmy Butler is a go-to guy. You saw that tonight. I don’t even care what his field-goal percentage was. He was dictating the game. The ball was going through him. That’s the definition of a go-to-player.”
Along with Nunn, Heat rookie forward KZ Okpala (personal reasons) also remained out Monday.
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The third quarter (and the second half) belonged to the Heat after a shaky first half.
Miami and Indiana entered halftime tied at 48. But the Heat broke the game open in the third quarter, outscoring the Pacers 37-23 in the period to enter the fourth quarter with a 14-point lead.
After Miami shot an inefficient 34.7 percent from the field and 4 of 19 on threes in the first half, the Heat’s offense came alive to score 37 points in the third quarter while shooting 63.6 percent from the field and 6 of 11 on threes.
Robinson led Miami in the period, with 11 third-quarter points. Butler was also a catalyst, contributing nine points on 4-of-6 shooting, two rebounds and three assists in the third quarter.
As for the Pacers, they shot just 33.3 percent from the field and 1 of 9 on threes in the period.
The Heat extended the lead even further by outscoring the Pacers 29-21 in the fourth quarter.
Miami won the second half 66-44 while shooting 55.1 percent from the field and 9 of 21 on threes during the final two quarters.
“We stayed aggressive. We guarded. We didn’t turn the ball over,” Butler said of the Heat’s second half. “We rebounded the ball well. We played the way that we’re supposed to play. I’m telling you, we’re very tough when we decide to play like that.”
The Heat dominated the rebounding battle Monday, and it could be something to watch if these two teams meet in the playoffs.
Indiana has been the NBA’s worst rebounding team in the NBA when All-Star center Domantas Sabonis is not playing. And Sabonis did not play Monday and he has yet to play at Disney because of a left foot injury.
That trend has continued in the bubble, with the Pacers entering Monday’s game with the second-worst rebounding percentage during seeding games among the 22 teams participating in the restart. Indiana grabbed just 44.4 percent of available rebounds during its first five seeding games.
The Heat took advantage of that weakness, outrebounding the Pacers 59-45. Miami finished with 13 offensive rebounds to outscore Indiana 28-13 in second-chance points.
“I don’t know if that message could’ve been sent more than it has been sent in the last 48 hours,” Spoelstra said of Miami’s rebounding effort. “We’ve just gotten absolutely pounded and annihilated on the glass the last three games.”
The Heat was outrebounded by 15 in Saturday’s loss to the Suns.
The Heat needs just one more win to avoid the Boston Celtics in the first round. One loss from the Philadelphia 76ers would do the trick, too.
With Monday’s win, No. 4 Miami moved one game ahead of No. 5 Indiana in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Heat has two seeding games remaining — Wednesday vs. Thunder and Friday vs. Pacers. Miami can clinch the No. 4 seed with a victory in either of those games.
In addition, just one 76ers loss would assure the Heat that it could not finish lower than fifth place in the conference. Philadelphia has three seeding games remaining — Tuesday vs. Phoenix, Wednesday vs. Toronto Raptors and Friday vs. Houston Rockets — and it will be without All-Stars Joel Embiid (left ankle) and Ben Simmons (left knee surgery) on Tuesday against the Suns.
While there’s essentially no difference between entering the playoffs as the No. 4 or No. 5 seed because those two teams will face off against each other in the first round and there is no real home-court advantage in the bubble, avoiding the No. 6 spot is probably best for the Heat. The No. 6 seed will match up against the No. 3 Celtics in the first round, and Miami is 1-2 against Boston this season.
The point is Monday’s win over the Pacers pushed the Heat closer to clinching the No. 4 seed and even closer to making sure it avoids the Celtics in the first round.
Meanwhile, fifth-place Indiana is now just one-half game ahead of sixth-place Philadelphia. The Pacers would finish ahead of the 76ers if the two teams finish seeding play with the same record because Indiana holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.
