Damian Lillard’s dominant 37-point performance helped the Milwaukee Bucks fend off the Miami Heat Tuesday evening inside the Kaseya Center, winning 106-103.
Milwaukee led by 22 with under nine minutes left in the second half. Though a combination of Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier–in his first game back from injury–and second-round rookie Pelle Larsson, among others, helped the Heat climb back into it.
Butler’s driving layup with 4:02 left capped off a 10-3 Heat run to tie it at 96. After Lillard sunk a pair of free throws, the Heat weren’t able to tie or take the lead for the rest of the game–even after a pair of crucial Rozier triples brought it to a one-point game on two separate occasions.
Lillard’s 37-point, 12-assist effort was without Giannis Antetokounmpo, who missed Tuesday’s game with a knee injury. Lillard shot 10-of-17 from the floor and buried eight of his 13 3-point attempts, adding three rebounds, one steal and one block in 38 minutes.
Butler led the Heat in scoring with 23 points, though 11 of those came at the charity stripe (on 13 attempts). They also had four rebounds and five assists on 6-of-12 shooting in 37 minutes. Tyler Herro had 18 points on 5-of-14 shooting with five rebounds and five assists; Bam Adebayo finished with 16 points and five boards on 6-of-9 shooting while Terry Rozier tallied 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting (3-4 3PT).
Milwaukee was scorching from beyond the arc in the first half, but cooled down. It ended up canning 20-of-42 (47.6 percent), from distance, doubling the Heat’s 3-point total (10) on the evening. Miami made up for it at the charity stripe, knocking down nine more free throws–though its problems persisted, missing seven free throws (23-30) that ultimately made the difference.
Tuesday’s loss snaps the Heat’s two-game win streak, dropping them to below .500 once again. They have not been above .500 since Oct. 29. The Bucks, however, have climbed out of a 2-8 run, having won seven of their last eight, including five straight over the Rockets, Bulls, Pacers, Hornets and now the Heat.
Miami has a quick turnaround, traveling to Charlotte for one game Wednesday. Will they be able to get back on track?
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Looking ahead to the 2025 draft, Miami has no draft picks. will need to trade assets in order to obtain draft picks. There are teams with potential lottery picks that may be good trade candidates:
Oklahoma City – Has two first round picks (one each from Heat and Clippers).
Brooklyn – Has four first round picks (it’s own which may be a lottery pick) and one each from playoff teams Milwaukee, New York and Houston.
Orlando – Has two first round picks (their own plus Denver’s).
Utah – Has two first round picks (it’s own which will be a lottery pick) plus Minnesota’s.
San Antonio – Has two first round picks it’s own (plus Atlanta’s which may be a lottery pick).
In order to have a shot at a possible 2025 lottery pick, Miami needs to trade with OKC, Brooklyn or San Antonio. OKC for Miami’s own pick, Brooklyn for it’s pick or San Antonio for Atlanta’s pick. None of those teams is assured of being lottery teams.
Questions:
Would OKC accept Duncan Robinson in exchange for the return of Miami’s first round pick plus salary fillers?
Would Brooklyn accept Jimmy Butler for their 2025 first round pick plus one more pick and Cam Thomas?
Would San Antonio trade Atlanta’s pick plus a salary filler for Rozier?
Is it possible for Miami to pull off more than one trade to ensure they end up as a lottery team?
See 2025 projected draft order below.
https://www.tankathon.com/full_draft
Do we need new players. I believe we have to many of them.
We need younger players with potential and draft picks. The team has plenty of role players…not enough stars.
Players are all over the place. There are 3 core players, Butler, Bam and Herro, and 12 more, which can all play at decent level and contribute is some way.
But rotation is 9, 10 players deep.
Sooner or later, the rotation should be set, and I dont see it yet. Bam, Butler and Herro will start, no matter what. But Highsmith and Dunc as starter doesn’t seem to me being members of better starting lineups in the league.
Jovic experiment is done, it seems. JJJ is not good at the moment, and he is basically Jimmies replacement, so the candidates for starting lineup are Pelle, Burks, Love. Not great.
The only lineup which looks fantastic this year was JRich, Dunc, Jovic, Bam and JJJ. Strong, fast, aggressive. There wasn’t another lineup this year to play well.
But Dunc is a starter now, JRich and Jovic are out of rotation, and JJJ is just bad.
Its time to Spo make some magic.
It’s never going to be set like that it’s not the philosophy of the roster construction. Spo and co has talked about the fluidity
IM OK riding it out with current squad.Lots of good players bam ty terry(proven track records) and still a borderline ss based on last 3 games.Problem is playing such unathletic stiffs as shnozic love j poor and duncan over ware jjj pelle dru.Use of personnel is not being maximized.If u cant guard or jump 6 inches off the ground just cant play in this league when other squads got brothers that can jump out of gym and blow by u in a heartbeat.The heat at times are field ateam from the 1960s pretty much.Time to get younger taller and quicker with our 3 good players and ss,Defense wins chips cant have dunc klove shnozzy out there.Thats a simple fix which will make team better Play fkn ware 30 mins with bam see what u got spobot.
This commentary gets into the area only you and I have delved into. And when I did I felt bad as I don’t like this discussion. But, what I call Pat’s social experiment is noticeable, beyond any other teams makeup enough to not be a coincidence. One factor has been our draft pick position, but even beyond that, we are a statistical outlier. That’s all I am going to say now. Except, Pelle may turn out to be the best of them after Tyler.
teams a little on the hassan whiteside ya think 30
Pat Riley has come a long way from his college days at Kentucky. The top ranked, all-white 1966 Wildcat team, coached by legendary coach Adolf Rupp, was led by 3 time MVP Riley. That team played an integrated underdog Texas Western team, coached by Don Haskins, for the national championship. Texas Western’s white coach decided to make a statement for the championship game by starting five black players. Texas Western College, now UTEP, defeated the University of Kentucky. If you have never seen the movie “Glory Road” it is worth watching.
The 1966 championship win accelerated the advancement of black athletes in the South. After that, college teams throughout the South aggressively began recruiting black athletes, ending years of shameful segregation.
Haskins, a humble and private man who did his best to avoid the public spotlight; always said skin color was never an issue when he put his Miners on the court against Kentucky. “I was simply playing the best players I had. It was what I had done all year,” Haskins said. Haskins went on to produce many more winning teams and many NBA stars before retiring from UTEP in 1999.
Pat Riley learned from his experience at Kentucky. He went on to coach some of the best teams in NBA history. The Lakers won 5 championships from 1980-1988. He also won in Miami as a coach in 1996 and twice as GM. I was a big fan of the “Showtime Lakers” of the 80’s. Some the team’s best players in that era were: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, AC Green, Michael Cooper, Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon and
Byron Scott. WHITESIDE not withstanding, Riley, like Haskins has always sought to recruit and play the best players available, regardless of race, ethnicity or skin color.
Might be the best comment I’ve seen on this board
Milw, as everyone said, was scorching…it was hard to keep in step but Heat was in there too bad they fell short. Can Butler do a b2b?
how bout doubling one guy that could beat u.
I was glad to see Ware get some playing time. The team showed a lot of heart coming back from 22 down.
The team is what it is. Mediocre most nights and some nights we get a glimpse of what the team could be. Unfortunately, the Heat is a team of three A/A- players and a supporting cast of B-/C role players. Without at least one more A player, the Heat will remain mediocre.
I hope the injury bug doesn’t hit Miami like it has other teams or mediocre can turn to crap real quick. Worse case scenario, Miami could be looking at becoming a 2025 lottery team without a 2025 draft pick and Jimmy opting out at the end of the season and walking away with the Heat getting nothing in return.
Time for Riley to plan ahead and start seriously thinking about making some moves before the trading deadline. Houston, Golden State and a few other contending teams are waiting to hear from him.
There may be a silver lining with Butler. I’ve read that there are few, if any, teams that can absorb the type of contract he would seek, so to get Butler might necessitate a sign and trade with the Heat.
No matter what team you play, if you fall behind by 22 early, the rest of the game is an uphill battle that you most likely will lose. Butler has played well since returning but, as of today, this is a mediocre team with or without him. They are 2-2 without him, 5-6 with him. This has been my position since last February. With their backs up against the second apron, there is not much they can do to improve the team long term. A trade or trades are long overdue. There have been many stories that Houston would give young players and picks for fellow Texan Butler. Do I believe this team can make the playoffs and maybe even win a round? I do. But I don’t realistically believe they can contend for a championship this season.
The team has some nice young building block complementary pieces – Bam, Herro, Ware, Pelle, Jaquez, Keshad, Christopher, Stevens, Dru. What the team needs is a dynamic young A or A+ player to be up there with the OKCs, Rockets, Cavs of the league.
Man, I agree with all of this.
The Heat are a play-in team with or without Butler. They can beat the bad teams but they lose to the good teams. They have enough playoff experience that they can steal a round or two, but they’re not good enough to win it all.
If the Heat can trade Butler to the Rockets for a handful of young guys, they all-of-a-sudden become a fun rebuilding team. They’re still a play-in team that can beat the bad teams but will lose to the good teams, except now they’re filled with young players that will continue to get better.
My only thing to add is that I truly believe that the front office sees the same thing we do. They’ve made the right moves. They didn’t overpay for Gabe or Strus or Caleb. They cut bait on Lowry when it was time. I trust that they’ll make the right move with Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline.
Good effort and a close loss, but this team is still quite limited. A better team would not lose to the Bucks when they are missing two of their best three players.
Sometimes you have to be realistic and try to improve for the future. There is no line up change that can overcome this team’s deficiencies, no superior coaching, no tactical approach that will change things much. And health, which we used as an excuse all last year, is not an issue as this team is as good as it can get and likely will have less players available going forward.
Hopefully, we will eventually do what any team does in this situation, make real short term or long term improvements to the roster. Until then, we will experience the ups and downs of being an average to slightly below average team.
It’s funny that we were writing basically the same theme at the same time.
I know. I’m reading everyone’s comments and we are echoing each other.
Good effort, after being down 22, but still embarrassing lost. losing at home to bucks without giannis, and Middleton is shameful. Scary Terry came to play in that 4th at least, and ware had good minutes. Also we continue missing easy layups, I guess that’s why we got the worst layup percentage in the nba smh.