Miami Sliced: Knicks Smoked By Jimmy Butler, Heat in Game 3
The New York Knicks felt 22 in the worst way possible on Saturday afternoon.
That was the largest lead for the Miami Heat in the third game of the NBA's Eastern Conference Semifinals, as they took full advantage of a return to South Beach with a 105-86 victory that gave them a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Miami led wire-to-wire in the series' first descent upon Kaseya Center, energized by the return of postseason hero Jimmy Butler. The Heat's headliner showed little aftershocks of the ankle injury that kept him out of Game 2 on Tuesday, invading the interior to get to the line 11 times, sinking all but one of his opportunities to earn 28 points on the afternoon.
Jalen Brunson, partly hobbled by an ankle injury of his own, led the Knicks with 20 points but needed 20 attempts from the field to get there, hitting just seven. Dimmed star power was a common theme and a major culprit behind the Knicks' dreary offensive output: Julius Randle and Josh Hart hauled in a combined 26 rebounds but united that with a 9-of-27 success rate.
The shooting struggles were best displayed from the outside, where the Knicks shot 8-of-40, the 20 percent success rate being tied for their worst mark in a playoff game (min. 20 attempts, tied with matching outputs in 1994 and 2012).
Wasted in the effort was some solid defense from the Knicks, who limited Miami to less than 39 percent from the field (including an equally offensive 22 percent showing from three-point range) and 105 points, tied with Game 2's tally at Madison Square Garden for their lowest-scoring tally of the playoffs.
Miami, however, scored when it needed to, turning the early stages of the ball game into the only relative clutch time. It took less than seven minutes for the head to establish their first of many double-figure leads on Saturday, as Butler and Max Strus (who briefly left Game 2 due to back issues) united for 15 of the Heat's first 21 points. The Knicks kept pace with offensive rebounding and trimmed the lead back down to eight by the time the first 12 let out.
A 13-2 run to open the second period, however, more or less put the game out of reach prematurely, as it never got back to single digits after that. The Knicks' frustration manifested in several ways: the continued woes from deep became more noticeable as they failed to make any headway, RJ Barrett (5-of-16 from the field while the Knicks were minus-32 when he was on the floor) took a technical foul when he tossed the ball at the basket stanchion, and the Knicks earned their own personal low in scoring this postseason and worst final score overall since March 11 against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Brief late drama formed in the latter stages as the game threatened to devolve into the typical overindulgences of physicality the Knicks-Heat postseason rivalry is known for. Cody Zeller pushed Julius Randle under the basket, leading to a 10-man get-together where a smiling Randle had fallen.
For the charge of sticking up for their teammates, Isaiah Hartenstein and Caleb Martin we were charged with technicals, as was Zeller for starting the brouhaha in the first place. But, true to the Knicks' afternoon luck, Randle missed the resulting free throw, keeping Miami's lead at 17 at the end of the third. The two teams played the fourth and final quarter without incident.
Zeller was one of four Floridians with at least six rebounds, joining Bam Adebayo (who had a 17-point, 12-rebound double-double), Kevin Love, and Haywood Highsmith. Kyle Lowry had another strong game off the bench with 14 points.
Further drama, this of the medical variety, plagued the Knicks as well, as Immanuel Quickley left the game in the middle of the fourth quarter with an ankle injury sustained when he and Adebayo went after a loose ball together.
The Knicks' chance to even the series lands on Monday night, the latter of a South Beach doubleheader (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT).
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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