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Poor starts have become an all too familiar scene for the Miami Heat, especially in these Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics. While they overcame huge leads in the first two games of the series, the Heat were not able to do so in Game 3, dropping their first game of the series, 117-106. Following the defeat, All-Star forward Jimmy Butler shared his thoughts on the loss and their slow starts to games in this series.
Speaking about Boston's dominance in the paint, especially in Game 3, where the C's scored 60 points in the shaded area, Butler admitted the Heat need to do a better job of easing pressure off their last line of defense, All-Star center Bam Adebayo.
“We just gotta stay in front of our man, simple as that. I think we put too much on Bam to always be there. He can’t save us every single time. He's great at help defense, he's great on the ball. But he already does enough for us. We can't just get beat and expect Bam to come and save us every time.”
“We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t do anything that we said we’re gonna do.”
Hear from Jimmy Butler on what went wrong against Boston tonight and what changes need to be made to bounce back in Game 4. pic.twitter.com/wMFGIVYg1g
— Bally Sports Sun: HEAT (@BallyHEAT) September 20, 2020
Nonetheless, though Butler believes the Heat are playing well, he still thinks they can play much better.
Miami has shown time and time again that they are capable of overcoming huge deficits when they fall behind early in games. They even almost did so in Game 3, but it was just a case of “too little, too late” for them on Saturday.
Personally, Butler hasn't shown his assertiveness, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Butler finished with just 17 points of just 13 shot attempts in Game 3. On the series, the two-way wing is averaging just 12.7 shot attempts through three games.
Jimmy Buckets must come out firing with more aggressiveness in Game 4.
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