The Miami Heat entered Thursday night’s game needing a win to get back to .500 after dropping their last contest to Atlanta. Set to play the contest without Bam Adebayo, it would be even just that much tougher of a task for this Miami Heat team.
On the other end of the spectrum and a stroke of luck for a Miami Heat team without Bam Adebayo at their disposal, the New Orleans Pelicans would also be without second-year phenom, Zion Williamson.
The game started out pretty evenly, until Kelly Olynyk put the Heat on his back. He made his first several shots, something like three or four in a row and at least two of them were triples.
He would finish the first half with 16 points. It was especially encouraging to see KO get going from downtown because he’s really been struggling from their recently.
The Miami Heat controlled the game for most of it, until late in the third and throughout the fourth when they tried to make a run and close the gap for good. They would get it to a point where they were hovering around four, but that was only able to stay that way because of Goran Dragic.
The Miami Heat were without Bam Adebayo on Thursday, but a certain trio stepped up to get it done.
When no one else could get it going in that late third-to early fourth period range, Goran Dragic shouldered the load for the Miami Heat, making it so that the Pelicans couldn’t totally take over the game, even though they were finally starting to find their offensive footing.
Then, the Miami Heat’s closer started to do what he does. Taking possession and ownership of the ball and the closing possessions right when he needed to, it was a display of the two-man game between the “bratjes” (“brothers” in Slovenian) that got Jimmy Butler going.
On a play where the shot clock was winding down, Goran received the pass from Jimmy with six seconds to go. Jimmy feinted a screen, rolled quickly, and Goran found him on a tough pass for what eventually amounted to a tough floating fall away push shot off the window.
Needless to say based on such an impeccable and descriptive illustration by yours truly, it was a beautiful thing to behold. Jimmy Butler, pretty much, took over things from there.
He scored baskets and had a few key defensive plays made for him by his team, especially the defensive savant that is Andre Iguodala (have to love all that Iggy gives you in limited minutes). That’s what sealed the deal for the Miami Heat, allowing them to go into an abbreviated All-Star break at .500.
This was a good win without Bam Adebayo and hopefully, the break does them a lot of good. We sure hope so, so that they’ll be able to come back and finish off another push to towards a potential title.