Atlanta comes back to steal Game 3 from Miami

The Miami Heat entered Game 3 with the opportunity to take a 3-0 series lead and practically guarantee themselves a spot in the next round. Instead, they faced a resilient Atlanta Hawks team and a more effecient Trae Young to lose 111-110.

You certainly expected an answer from the home team down 0-2 in the series, but with the Heat up 16 down the stretch it’s hard not to see this as a missed opportunity. You got balanced contributions from the entire team with Bam Adebayo providing an efficient 13 points, 11 rebound, five assists and three steals. Tyler Herro also had a solid game finishing with 24 points, seven rebounds and four assists. You add that to a pair of 20 point games from Max Strus and Jimmy Butler plus the best game of the series from PJ Tucker and you would assume that this was a win.

Unfortunately, the late game execution on offense that has hurt the Heat throughout this season reared its ugly head once again. There was no creativity and a lot of standing around while Jimmy or Tyler try to navigate around screens. Don’t even get me started with the final possession of the game. It just wasn’t working and further shows the impact Kyle Lowry has on the floor even when he isn’t trying to score. The Heat were without their veteran PG for the majority of the second half due to a leg injury and though they went on a big run without him they couldn’t sustain it and eventually fell apart without their floor general.

The defense was incredible and in particular from Tucker and Bam. Their ability to switch any pick and roll made it impossible for Young to find any space for most of this game. However, they didn’t keep up that intensity for the entire 48 minutes and that would ultimately decide this game in the end. Bogdan Bogdonavic had his second straight good game and could not be stopped in the fourth quarter. He finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists. It was his lights out scoring that kept the game close enough for Young to showcase his magic down the stretch.

I have to give a lot of credit to Delon Wright as he’s made a huge impact when he has been on the court. His energy on both ends changes the tempo for the Hawks and makes things flow much better. His presence has been a constant for Atlanta in this series and you should expect him to continue to gain important minutes for this team.

Now the Heat need to refocus and lock in for Game 4 on Sunday as they can’t afford to let this series drag on for too long with Philadelphia seemingly looking to close out their series in the coming days. Hopefully the decision to keep Kyle out of the second half was just a precaution and he will be in the lineup for the next game because they’ll need his presence to pull out the win. See you next time!