MIAMI — The Miami Heat enter the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the NBA.
After standing at 28-28 with just a month remaining in the regular season, the Heat won 12 of their final 16 games to close with a 40-32 record.
The sixth-seeded Heat hope to carry that momentum into their best-of-7 first-round series against the third-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. The NBA announced that Game 1 of the series will be Saturday at Fiserv Forum, with the time to be determined.
The schedule for the rest of the series will be announced in the coming days.
“We’ve been grinding,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Heat’s growth during the past month. “We’ve been at this grind for several weeks, and we’ve been trying to improve and take another step as a basketball team. I think this stretch run when the games have a certain amount of context and pressure and significance to them, that’s what you ultimately hope. That it brings a different level out of your team. That’s what these last few weeks have done, and we’re just going to continue to forge ahead day by day.”
Here are some encouraging Heat trends entering the postseason:
The Heat’s offensive revival
After finishing last regular season with the NBA’s seventh-best offensive rating, the Heat struggled to even have an average offense for the first three months of this season. Miami reached the end of March with the NBA’s sixth-worst offensive rating (scoring 107.7 points per 100 possessions) through the first 48 games of the season, and the regression on this end of the court was hard to explain.
But the Heat’s offense was among the league’s best during the final six weeks of the regular season. Since the start of April, Miami posted the fifth-best offensive rating in the NBA (scoring 116.4 points per 100 possessions). Four of the Heat’s five best single-game offensive ratings of the season came in May.
Through the end of March, Miami shot 45.7% from the field and 34.4% on 3s.
Since the start of April, the Heat shot 49.2% from the field and 38.5 percent on 3s.
The Heat are making more shots. Sometimes it’s that simple.
Jimmy Butler’s dominance
Butler missed 20 of the Heat’s 72 regular-season games. But when Butler was available, he was one of the NBA’s best players, and the Heat was a difficult team to beat.
Miami finished 7-13 in games that Butler missed and 33-19 when he played.
The Heat outscored opponents by 5.2 points per 100 possessions when Butler was on the court, and opponents outscored the Heat by 5.9 points per 100 possessions when he wasn’t on the court during the regular season for an off/court net rating differential of 11.1 points.
Butler averaged team highs in points, assists and steals this season. Despite missing the final two games of the regular season because of lower back tightness, he’s expected to be healthy and ready for the start of the playoffs.
The Heat has survived the minutes without Bam Adebayo and Butler recently
Let’s not count the regular-season finale because Adebayo and Butler were held out of that one and the Detroit Pistons were also missing a chunk of their roster.
But in the five games prior to the regular-season finale, the Heat were only outscored by three points in 47 minutes without both Adebayo and Butler on the court, according to NBA WOWY. That’s an acceptable and improved margin, comparing it to Miami’s plus/minus of minus-129 without Adebayo and Butler for the season.
Either Adebayo or Butler, and often both, will be on the court for most of the game in the playoffs. But it is important that Miami doesn’t get blown out in the few minutes it has to play without both of them.
This was an important part of the Heat’s playoff run to the NBA Finals last season, when they actually outscored opponents by one point in the 97 minutes it played without both Adebayo and Butler. Winning those minutes usually translates into a win.
The Heat’s depth is finally showing
With so many players in and out of the lineup throughout the season, the Heat weren't able to leverage their depth as often as they would have liked. But Miami’s roster is expected to enter the playoffs at nearly full strength, with guard Victor Oladipo (season-ending knee surgery) the only player who has been ruled out for the start of the postseason.
That means the entire nine-man rotation the Heat used the past six weeks during their best stretch of the season should be available for Game 1 of the first round: A starting lineup of Kendrick Nunn, Duncan Robinson, Butler, Trevor Ariza and Adebayo, and a bench rotation of Goran Dragic, Tyler Herro, Andre Iguodala and Dewayne Dedmon.
The Heat, who finished the regular season averaging the ninth-fewest bench points at 34.4 per game on 44.2% shooting from the field and 34.7% shooting on 3s, got 41.7 points per contest on 50.8% shooting from the field and 43.6% shooting on 3s from their reserves over the final 10 games of the schedule.
But there are a few concerning Heat things entering the playoffs:
The Heat’s defense has been trending in the wrong direction
Miami’s defense didn’t have the best finish to the regular season, posting the seventh-worst defensive rating in the NBA since the start of April. But the Heat have featured a top-10 defense for most of the season and enter the playoffs with the 10th-best defense in the NBA.
What has been the difference recently? Miami allowed 21.8 makes per game from inside the paint on 61.8% shooting since the start of April, compared to 20.1 makes from inside the paint on 54.5% shooting through the first three months of the season through the end of March.
Fourth quarters have not been a strength for the Heat
The Heat recorded the NBA’s third-worst fourth-quarter net rating (minus-5.3) in the regular season. Miami is the only playoff team in the bottom seven in this category.
That Heat’s fourth-quarter net rating is made up of the 26th-ranked offense and 19th-ranked defense in the final period.
This is noteworthy because one of the biggest reasons behind Miami’s playoff run to the NBA Finals last season was its fourth-quarter dominance. The Heat finished with the top fourth-quarter net rating (plus-19.6) last postseason and lost just seven of the 21 fourth quarters it played during last year’s playoff push.
The Heat don't have Jae Crowder
Crowder played a critical role for the Heat during the playoffs last season, especially against the Bucks. He shot 43.1% on 10.2 3-point attempts per game and also served as Giannis Antetokounmpo’s primary defender in that Miami-Milwaukee second-round matchup before leaving to sign with the Phoenix Suns in free agency last offseason.
According to NBA tracking stats, Antetokounmpo shot just 9 of 22 (40.9%) with Crowder as his primary defender last postseason.
Even without Crowder, the Heat still have a few experienced, effective and versatile defenders to throw at Antetokounmpo. Ariza, Adebayo, Iguodala and even Butler at times are expected to be used on Antetokounmpo during the series.
