It was a brutal Wednesday night to say the least for the Miami Heat as they lost to the Toronto Raptors, 121-97. After the conclusion of the game, star Jimmy Butler spoke to the media to give his thoughts on the rough outing as it is his second game back from a string of injuries that had him miss the last 11 of 12 games before his return.
Miami was down 35 points at halftime, the biggest deficit in the franchise's history at the break, but Butler was cool and confident during his media availability. He acknowledged that the team did not play well Wednesday, but says they will be “just fine” in terms of the rest of the season according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald.
“We’re cool,” Butler said. “Obviously, we can be better. But we’d rather be seven games over .500 than seven games under .500. So we’ll be just fine.”
The Raptors were electric from three-point range as in the first half, they made 14 of 22 from deep compared to the Heat who just hit one shot out of 16 tries. Butler mentioned after the loss that games can get “ugly very quickly” if the defense dictates the offense's performance.
“They were making shot after shot,” Butler said. “But I mean, we didn’t really make them miss and then we weren’t making shots. So it’s always tough when you dig yourself a hole like that with a squad that can score the ball as well as they can. The game gets ugly very quickly.”
Spoelstra talks about Butler's return Monday
Despite the loss, the team is still trying to find some semblance after missing Butler for a significant amount of time. Especially with him gaining back the chemistry with stars Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo who make the current team's “Big three” as the trio hasn't played a lot of games this season together.
Butler came back Monday in the gritty road win against the Brooklyn Nets and it looked like he has not missed any time as he scored a 31 points. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said his return was “phenomenal” and that no one ever forgets about his “greatness” according to The Miami Herald.
“It was phenomenal,” Spoelstra said. “You don’t ever forget about his greatness. The fact that he can score 31 on 12 shots, that’s a misprint. And that should be studied by every young player coming into the league, where you don’t just need to be a chucker, you don’t need to be a volume shooter to be able to score 30. You can do it efficiently if you take the right shots and you find the different gaps and weaknesses with your IQ, and that’s what he did tonight.”
The 33-year old did play 40 minutes in that contest which Spoelstra admitted after the game that was more than they planned on doing since he came back from an injury that set him aside for a bit. Butler on the other hand believes the preparation he did to come back was enough for him to play that lengthy amount of time.
Herro, Adebayo stress that the Heat stars need playing time together
It is no secret that the Heat have had injury problems since the beginning of the season despite the team still having a solid record. However, Miami still needs to perfect the chemistry between the aforementioned “Big three” of Miami as Herro says that while the three need playing time together, injuries are a natural part of the NBA.
“We need time together, especially leading up into All-Star break before we get to the playoffs,” Herro said. “But it’s all part of an NBA season. We would like to get everyone healthy, but there’s no guarantees. Whoever is on the court, we just got to bring what we can and try to stack Ws.”
Despite the appeal of three star players, there is some faults to it as spacing can be an issue. This is a mean reason why the minutes together needs to happen per Adebayo so they can get used to playing with each other this season as the team is almost at the All-Star break.
“I feel like this is a great stretch for us just to get back to the big three, playing with the three guys,” Adebayo said via The Miami Herald. “And also everybody figuring out spacing and how we can keep going with this thing.”
Miami will come back home for a short one-game stint Friday as they face the Atlanta Hawks in what should be another celebratory night as they retire Udonis Haslem's jersey. The team is 24-17 on the season which puts them sixth in the Eastern Conference.
Follow Us
Subscribe