The Miami Heat had a difficult task in front of them heading into Tuesday night’s Game 5 matchup with the Atlanta Hawks. Facing off against a Hawks team on the brink of elimination in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, that should have already made the task hard enough.
Then, just mere hours before tipoff, they would find out that Jimmy Butler wouldn’t be going for them in the contest. That’s on top of the fact that Kyle Lowry would also be missing his second consecutive game in a row due to a Game 3 hamstring issue.
All was well though. Though it would be more closely contested than it would have been if the Heat were at full strength, the Miami Heat still had enough to win.
From the tremendous depth they’ve shown all year, to the uber talent they would still put on the floor in guys like Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, all to go along with their super-secret weapon on the year, Victor Oladipo, things would be fine.
At least, they should have been.