Being beaten badly, worse this Game 3 in many ways than the staggering Game 2, Bam Adebayo sat on the bench with the dazed look of a fighter laid out on the canvas, seeing the world before him but seemingly not focusing on it.
He certainly didn’t understand it. Did anyone? The surprise wasn’t so much that Milwaukee won, 113-84, and essentially finished the series in three games. It’s that the Heat played like a limp orchid.
You like to see a good and bad side to everything. But the good side of the Heat being run off the home court is there’s only one more embarrassment to go.
The bad side is pretty much everything else involving the Heat this series. They were up for the game –”We’re built for this,’' Tyler Herro said of being down 0-2 entering Thursday – and then quickly down for the count. Overwhelmed. Overpowered. Over and out.
There were 17,000 fans allowed in AmericanAirlines Arena for this one, they tried to celebrate their return to normal by making some encouraging noise and derogatory chants. But there was nothing normal and the only sound to be heard was the Heat unraveling piece by unsavory piece right from the opening shot - an Adebayo miss on an open jumper.
That linked the tone of Game 3 to Milwaukee dominating like in Game 2. It remained like that the rest of the way, too. The Heat made 14 of their 45 shots at half — and Jimmy Butler had six of them in 12 attempts. The rest of the Heat were eight of 33. Milwaukee’s defense was too big, too strong. Every shot but Butler’s had the clunky feel and symbolic idea of Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill.
It wasn’t just the misses, either. It was the rebounding. There was a first-half intersection of awful when the Heat (8 of 31) and Milwaukee (11 for 34) each missed 23 shots. That showed Milwaukee wasn’t even asked to be great. But those simultaneous 23 misses didn’t tell the story of the night.
The Heat having one offensive rebound then did.
Milwaukee having seven offensive rebounds then did.
Do you see? How it was all kaput? Even then, the Heat Way, the Heat DNA, could have relied on defense to carry the night. But the defense eventually became infected with the same small-man virus as the game clunked on.
That’s the real Heat DNA in this series. Too small. Too blessed small. The 7-foot mountain Brook Lopez took a pass for a dunk. Lopez another pass for a dunk. Khris Middleton beat Adebayo with a dribble out top and danced down the lane for a lay-up.
Giannis Antetokounmpo? Another telling part. Milwaukee wasn’t really playing that well or shooting like it had in the torrid Game 2. But the reigning MVP wasn’t even needed on offense this night. He was a rebounding machine. He was a defensive star.
But on offense he an accessory part, a conversational hood ornament. He had five of Milwaukee’s first 47 points. The game was long gone by then for the Heat, and it kept drifting further away, like a log being swept out by the tide.
You could measure coach Erik Spoelstra’s desperation to find something, anything, that might work. He brought Dewayne Dedmon in early. He played Dedmon and Nemanja Bjelica together in the third quarter to beef up the frontline. And Bjelica at least, well, made some shots.
The amazing part is this Heat team ran Milwaukee off the court in five games last year. Sure, there are differences. Jae Crowder is gone from the Heat. Was he that important? Milwaukee added good parts like Jrue Holiday and Bryn Forbes.
But those changes don’t explain this different. The question by the third quarter wasn’t if Milwaukee could beat the Brooklyn Nets coming up these playoffs. Could they beat the ’72 Dolphins?
By the end Thursday, Milwaukee emptied its bench, as if to make sure everyone got a high-school letter. The Heat? They’re looking for a win, one win in Saturday’s Game 4, just to stave off a series of full embarrassment.
Anyone think they have it in them?
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