The Miami Heat beat the Indiana Pacers in Game One of their series Tuesday. Back and forth for a lot of it, Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic closed the door.
The Miami Heat opened their first-round playoff series against the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday. Based on the previous contest, they were sure to be back and forth affairs if everything was going at least halfway right for both teams.
With that being said though and if we are using history concurrently to make predictions, there was a good chance that the day would end in a Miami Heat victory as well, but that’s for later.
As stated though, this game opened like a tennis match. The Pacers would make a run, followed by a Heat run, so on, and so forth.
Victor Oladipo exited the game after being inadvertently poked in the eye, giving the Heat one less offensive threat to defend, which some might say allowed the Heat to be able to keep close at times early. With that in mind though and be that as it happened, things really stayed tit for tat until the second half.
Even in the second half though, it wasn’t really until the final quarter that the Miami Heat could make that run that they needed to make to remain separated from the Pacers on the scoreboard for good.
The Miami Heat needed to get off to a good start in the playoffs. They did just that with a tough win behind their leaders, Goran Dragic and Jimmy Butler.
It was started by Goran Dragic I would say, going on one of his patented personal Goran Dragic runs midway through the fourth. This was a time where the Miami Heat themselves were starting to become stagnant and the game was at a point where it could have begun to swing either way.
On two possessions across only a handful at the most, Goran grabbed two offensive rebounds. Although he only scored off of the second rebound, a tough locomotive like layup, his energy and effort were things that the team needed in those moments.
He then knocked down a three right after that possession though, leaking out along the perimeter to find the space and lane for a Jimmy Butler kick out. This was all before knocking down another shot or two as the next few possessions happened.
Getting the Heat started was Goran Dragic, but Jimmy Butler decided to tie a bow around this one. He knocked down one huge 27-foot three-pointer with around 3 minutes or more on the clock, before being the very next Miami Heat player to score a few possessions later on a 25-foot leaning three-pointer with two minutes on the clock.
After knocking down the first one though, the camera caught Jimmy telling the rest of his teammates to get him the ball, in a more adult kind of way if you know what we mean. After the Jimmy shots, Goran Dragic and Jimmy would close the game with eight more points between them across the last two minutes.
Appropriately so, just as it had been over the rest of the fourth. This was a big game for the Miami Heat to get out to a good start and they did just that.
It was a bit tense to start, but they eventually got it together and you love to see them go through a bit of adversity early to get a win of this magnitude. Thursday isn’t that far off and you can bet the Pacers will be licking their chops to do it all over again.