The Miami Heat are in a very tough place right now. After a very close, tough, and down-to-the-wire defeat in Saturday’s Game 1 of the opening round in the NBA Playoffs, they experienced the only thing tougher than that in Monday’s Game 2.
Coming out, for which you’d hope they would have been fired up after Game 1’s defeat, they didn’t appear to have anything in Game 2. Not only didn’t they have any extra fire, but they seemingly didn’t even have regular fire.
Before you knew it, the Milwaukee Bucks were up 15, then 20, before finally at some point, reaching the 30-point-lead threshold. Based on the final tally and as we now know, 132-98, that was enough for the Milwaukee Bucks and was it for the Miami Heat.
The Miami Heat were beaten up on Monday by the Bucks, which begs of a question. Can they still win this thing?
Even still though and with these two defeats, there are at least two more games to played. Also, with the Bucks doing what they had to do in taking care of their home-floor, are the Heat right where they are supposed to be?
Though that doesn’t mean losing the way they did on Monday, it begs of the simplest question that this all could boil down to. Do they still have a chance at winning this series?
The answer is yes. Here’s why.
If you know anything about the Miami Heat, which a ton of you do, then you know that never quitting is a whole thing with them. While that doesn’t mean that they will win, it means that they always have a shot and that’s because they are always going to try.
Well, outside of Monday night, apparently. That’s the first reason, but the second reason has everything to do with what Jimmy Butler had to say following the game.
Jimmy Butler: "The bright spot is I don't think we could play any worse."
— Anthony Chiang (@Anthony_Chiang) May 25, 2021
He’s exactly right. Looking at Monday’s contest, they can’t play any worse than that.
They may have had their worst playoff game as a team on Monday, while he had his worst individual game, ever, on Sunday. That’s one heck of a combination.
The last reason is this. The Bucks probably won’t go 22-53 from deep again this series, which likely means they don’t have another opening quarter where they make 10 of them either.
That’s the third reason. So again, yes, the Miami Heat do still have a shot to win the series.
They can’t play anything like they did in Monday night’s Game 2 though. They’ll probably want to be better, offensively, than they were in Game 1 as well, but that’s just a thought.