The Miami Heat never quit. With Jimmy Butler out of action after injuring his knee in Miami’s first play-in game last week, the Heat knocked off the 1-seed Boston Celtics Wednesday night to even the series.
In Game 1, Boston’s hot shooting from beyond the arc doomed Miami. Ahead of Game 2, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra conceded that his team would need to be more aggressive from three if they wanted to keep pace with the Celtics.
“I understand the math of it,” Spoelstra said. “We’re not going to shoot 50 of them. That’s not realistic.”
While nobody would have expected Miami to shoot 50 threes in Game 2, it did surprise a lot of people by launching 43 three-pointers. In Game 1, Miami finished 12-of-37 from three while Boston shot 22-of-49 — Boston won by 20. Last night, Miami shot a blistering 23-of-43 from deep (Boston was 12-of-32) en route to a 111-101 victory.
“We’ve been doubted a lot through our playoff runs, people saying we couldn’t do a lot of stuff that we did,” said Miami center Bam Adebayo. “So for me and my team, why lose belief now? Our backs are against the wall. Everybody’s against us. So just use that as fuel. Our guys believe we can win. So let’s make it mano a mano — a cage fight. Let’s hoop.”
Adebayo scored 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds. Tyler Herro (6-of-11 from three) added 24, Caleb Martin (5-of-6) finished with 21, and Jaime Jacquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic combined for 25 points on 6-of-10 from three.
Speaking to reporters after the win, Martin expanded on Miami’s need to be more aggressive shooting the ball.
“I think it was realizing that being passive [as shooters] hurts us. We’d just be playing into their game plan,” Martin said. “We’re too good of a shooting team to hesitate from 3.”
The Heat will host Boston on Saturday night for a crucial Game 3.
