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.
***
This is a developing news story. Stay tuned for updates.
To check out our other content, click here.
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter/X here!
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram here!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
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?
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.
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.