MIAMI — The rebound barely eluded a few members of the Miami Heat.
After Chicago Bulls guard Coby White missed a 3, Caleb Martin got a hand on the ball, but all that did was deflect it away from his teammate Jaime Jaquez Jr. The rebound went to Javonte Green, who tossed it to an uncovered Andre Drummond for an easy basket.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called timeout, smacking his hands together in anger. This would not stand: After going on a 26-2 run, the Heat had allowed a 2-0 Chicago burst. Unacceptable.
Roll your eyes at Heat Culture, and all the hokey, try-hard voodoo that comes with it, at your own peril. With Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier out of the lineup, taking two of the three most dangerous creators on the Heat from an already-poor offense, leave it to Spoelstra to worry about everything but scoring. Essentially: If you defend, battle for rebounds and loose balls and identify opportunities to run when they are there, you can score well enough to beat a mediocre team. After coming just one point shy of locking down a playoff spot on Wednesday, the undermanned Heat dispatched the Chicago Bulls for the second straight year in the final game of the Eastern Conference half of the Play-In Tournament, winning 112-91. They advance to play the Boston Celtics, pretty much the best team in the NBA from start to finish in the regular season, starting on Sunday.
TYLER HERRO BEHIND-THE-BACK DIME 🤯 pic.twitter.com/qteSDMdTFN
— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 20, 2024
“For me, it was simple: ‘If you have any doubt, or if you’re scared, get a dog,’” Bam Adebayo said of his message to his teammates following the news of Butler’s injury. “‘Don’t show up, because it doesn’t do anything but affect the people who really believe that we can get a win.’”
“We have a bunch of type-A competitors,” Spoelstra added. “I wanted them to embrace it, to enjoy it, to be grateful to have a game like that.”
They embraced it, in an unsurprisingly surprising way. For the second straight game, Spoelstra did something that seemed to catch Miami’s opponent by surprise. On Wednesday, it was going to a zone defense once Adebayo was in foul trouble, daring the Philadelphia 76ers to move the ball and find ways to get Joel Embiid involved other than as a screener. The 76ers had enough talent and know-how to eventually catch up, if only just.
Not so much with the Bulls. In a surprise, Adebayo, as much an avatar of the Heat ethos as anyone, started the game guarding DeMar DeRozan instead of center Nikola Vučević. By the time the Bulls got their feet under them, they were down 20. It did not take DeRozan out of the game entirely, but made him more of a tertiary option instead of a lead decision-maker.
Had Butler been on the floor, he likely would have guarded DeRozan, leaving Adebayo to patrol the paint. Without Butler, Adebayo spent more time on the perimeter, and the other Heat players, particularly Nikola Jović, scrambled to fight with Vučević.
“Bam is absolutely incredible. But that just goes to show that we have enough,” said Jaquez, repeating one of Spoelstra’s favorite lines. “One guy goes down, Bam comes up, steps up to the challenge, and takes it head on. That’s inspiring to us as his teammates, that that’s something that he rarely does, but he can do. And he goes out and shows it tonight. That inspires us as a collective.”
“It’s another day in the office,” Adebayo said. “Obviously your coach trusting you to defend their star player as a center speaks a lot to who you are and what you bring to the team.”
GO DEEPER
Heat Culture is in Bam Adebayo’s hands now
As for the offensive part of the equation, Tyler Herro, who led the Heat with 24 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists, confirmed that the Heat were looking to play fast in the absence of Butler’s one-on-one excellence. For the record, the Heat played at the second-slowest pace this year.
This is what the Heat do, though: They figure out a way to discombobulate their opponent even when it seems like they don’t have the talent or specific skills to do so. They had 35 different starting lineups this year. Jaquez took Butler’s spot for this game, and had 21 points, second only to Herro.
To be sure, there were offensive droughts. The Heat managed just 13 points in the second quarter, but only lost seven points off of their 17-point lead after the first quarter. The Heat had a lot of disastrous possessions where they had trouble getting a foot into the paint. At one point, Caleb Martin threw up a 10-foot push shot that fell well short, but he busted it back defensively, swatting Ayo Dosonmu in transition. That was a common sight in the frame, even as the Heat set offense back 30 years.
A pair of big-time Miami rejections ⛔️
Heat lead 47-37 at the break! pic.twitter.com/zUwP9m5Eea
— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 20, 2024
Going from playing the laissez-faire Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday to the Heat on Friday must have felt like stepping on an airplane in Ecuador and stepping off in Antarctica for the Bulls. The Heat are probably in for a similar shock to the system.
The Bulls have been a middling mess for two seasons now, and limped their way to 39 wins this year. Sure, Miami has a history of confounding the Celtics in the playoffs, but this Boston team had the league’s second-best defense. Miami had the 21st-ranked offense this season, and that was with Butler playing 60 games. If the Celtics have a weakness, it is late-game offense, and Spoelstra will surely try to find ways to test the Celtics’ willingness to keep moving the ball. However, the Celtics can rotate Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown on to Herro and not overly fear any other perimeter option from Miami — so long as Butler and Rozier remain out.
As the game against the Bulls wound down, the Miami fans started to chant “We want Boston.” There was an obvious talent disparity between the two teams, and that was before Butler suffered his injury. Beating the Celtics four times out of seven seems closer to an impossibility than an improbability.
“We always said, ‘We’re not a regular eighth seed,’” Adebayo said. “And people know that for some reason.”
The Heat have gotten pretty good over the last few years at talking themselves into being able to accomplish pretty well anything.
(Photo: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
