Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat would snap their three-game slide and help their playoff positioning, the Dallas Mavericks would take a big blow in the Western Conference race.
Butler had 35 points and 12 assists, Cody Zeller would add 20 points and the Heat held off the Mavericks 129-122 on Saturday evening. Miami won despite allowing Dallas to shoot a season-high 61% from the floor.
“I wouldn’t necessarily have drawn it up this way,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Superstar Luka Doncic was phenomenal again for Dallas, finishing Saturday’s contest with 42 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. Tim Hardaway Jr. added 31 points and Kyrie Irving would produce 23 points and eight assists for the Mavericks.
“A win is a win,” Jimmy Butler said. “I don’t like the fact that they shot 61%. But I do like the fact that we finally won a game.”
Max Strus and Kevin Love scored 18 a piece and Tyler Herro added 15 for the Heat during the victory.
The Mavs on the other hand, they had been 7-0 this season when shooting at least 54% in a game, and fell to 30-2 all-time, including the NBA playoffs, in games where they have shot at least 60%.
“Our defense was nonexistent, couldn’t get stops,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said.
Both teams made their way to the conference finals last season; the Heat are trying to get out of the play-in tournament, and the Mavericks are trying to just secure any type of seeding in the upcoming playoffs.
The win moves Miami closer to securing no worse than the seventh-seed and most advantageous spot in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament. The Heat are now two and a half games ahead of both the eighth-seed Atlanta Hawks and ninth-seed Toronto Raptors.
Miami inched just a bit closer and remain one and half games behind the sixth-seed Brooklyn Nets. Meanwhile, it’s a big blow to Dallas.
The Mavs fell a full game behind the 10th-seed Oklahoma City Thunder in the race for the last Western Conference play-in spot, and to make matters worse, the Thunder own the head-to-head tiebreaker. Dallas is now two games behind the ninth-seed Minnesota Timberwolves and hold only a half-game lead in front of the 12th-seed Utah Jazz.
“Just got to play hard, play with desperation and anything can happen,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said. “Anything can happen.” Hardaway Jr. is the son of former Miami Heat All-Star, now NBA Hall of Famer, Tim Hardaway Sr.
Speaking of Hall of Famers, former Miami Heat superstar, Dwyane Wade, was formally presented on Saturday as an inductee for the 2023 Hall of Fame Class. A presentation that took place at the NCAA Men’s Final Four in Houston, Texas.
The Heat changed its starting lineup on Saturday, one out of necessity and the other an actual change. Center Bam Adebayo didn’t play because of a right hip contusion, so Cody Zeller started in place of Adebayo. It was Zeller’s first start in an NBA game in quite some time, since May of 2021, which was for the Charlotte Hornets. Max Strus took the forward starting spot that had been held by Kevin Love since he joined the Heat in February.
Those changes would pay off immediately. Strus was 3-for-3, all three-pointers during his first shift. Love would shoot 3-for-3 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the line for 13 points in his first eight minutes off the bench, and Zeller had 12 points of his own by halftime.
“K-Love is always, always has been about winning. As long as we win, he’s not going to complain,” Jimmy Butler said
It all helped add up to the third highest-scoring first half in Heat history: Miami led 76-64 at halftime, they would also stretch their lead by 18-points in the second half, ultimately they would hang on and secure their 41st win of the 2022-2023 regular season.
Miami will finish with a record of at least .500 for the fourth consecutive year and the 24th time in its 35 seasons.
Miami starts a three-game road trip to Detroit [Pistons], Philadelphia [76ers] and Washington [Wizards] on Tuesday, before their regular season finale at home on April 9th against the Orlando Magic.
