The Miami Heat started a three-game road trip on Sunday afternoon. The first leg of the trip took them to the Barclays center for a duel with Brooklyn Nets.
The Miami Heat were off to a 13-5 record, leaving the team and the fanbase feeling mighty good, one would imagine. While eight of those 18 victories had come at home, a perfect 8-0 at home might I add, the Miami Heat were only .500 on the road while some out there even wanted to challenge the competitiveness of the schedule thus far.
Sunday would be the day where the Heat would embark on a small tour to change some of those notions and it started in the home of the Brooklyn Nets. As we told you that you could possibly take solace in the fact that Kyrie Irving wouldn’t be playing in this matchup, we also warned that it may be a false hope type of thing considering the way Spencer Dinwiddie had been playing of late.
The latter turned out to be true, as it was a back and forth affair for much of the game, with Dinwiddie leading the Brooklyn charge. Dinwiddie, who had quite a few tough shots in his bag today, was also heavily assisted by Joe Harris who was big for the Nets as the game winded down. As mentioned, it was a back and forth game but the most important sequences or points of reference happened in the fourth quarter.
With around four minutes left in the game, the Miami Heat trailed the Nets by eight points. It would toggle between there and a few points for the next three minutes, where the Miami Heat eventually found themselves down by seven with around a minute to a minute and a half left in the game.
It was at this point that Jimmy Butler decided to do what we should have been dong for a while, what he has done all season, and what I was calling for across at least the previous 5 minutes of the game. Butler started to create more for himself by attacking the basket where he would more often than not draw a foul, as he has all season, but which also opened up more similar opportunities for him as the game closed.
Jimmy Butler showed why he was a necessary get for the Miami Heat this past summer, to do exactly what he did today in Brooklyn, which was to close the game and help the Heat come up with a huge clutch win. Butler was not alone though, and in fact whereas he was the closer, Goran Dragic is what kept them in it throughout.
Throughout the entire game and even in the fourth quarter, his three-point play off of a foul on a layup that countered a Nets three-pointer in the closing minutes in example, The Dragon found himself hitting the shots or making the plays that helped to keep the game close when the Miami Heat were the ones trailing.
Dragic paced the Heat in scoring with 24 points, six huge assists, and two rebounds. Jimmy Butler had 20 points, seven rebounds, and two assists.
Bam Adebayo had 17 points, 16 rebounds, and an assist. Seven Heat players scored nine or more points, while five had five rebounds or more.
The Miami Heat got another clutch win on Sunday in Brooklyn, but they must now turn their attention to Tuesday and Wednesday where they have a tough set of back to backs against the Toronto Raptors and the Boston Celtics. We will see if they can continue to validate the 14-5 record they have accrued thus far.