The Miami Heat are officially a lock for the NBA Playoffs and that’s without having to go at it in the NBA’s newly instituted play-in tournament. After handling their business on Sunday against a Boston Celtics squad that is also fighting for they postseason lives, they came out on Monday evening with a similar attitude.
While this game was bit back and forth for the first half of play, the Miami Heat ran away with it in the second half. Their second half of play was fueled by the efforts of Tyler Herro and Goran Dragic off the pine.
At one point in the contest, they went back and forth, it seems, hitting tough shot after tough shot. It was also, at that point, where it seemed like neither could miss anything they threw up.
The Miami Heat needed to win a second consecutive game against the Celtics to secure their playoff spot and they did on Monday night.
Considering the tough roads they’ve traveled this season, these last few games have been well-earned, soon-coming, and much-needed by the Miami Heat. Goran would finish with 17 points, two assists, and a rebound on 6-11 from the field and 5-7 from deep.
Tyler Herro would chip in 24 off the pine, two games removed from a 27 point effort in a win over Minnesota, while also dishing three dimes and grabbing a huge… 11 rebounds. As stated many times and again recently, if these two can continue to ignite the bench, the sky is, again, the limit for this Miami Heat team.
It wasn’t all good for Miami though, well not totally as they were able to get the win and close it without him, but Jimmy Butler went down with an eye injury for pretty much the entire second half. While, thankfully, they had enough in the tank to get it done without him for part of the game on Monday, the hope should be that it was just a bit much on him for this one game.
The Miami Heat still have something to play for and Thursday’s game against Philadelphia may go a long way with a win. If they can bring the same energy as they had against Boston for all of six or seven quarters, then they should be able to get that one too.