Playoff Jimmy delivers, series-changing injuries, takeaways from Heat’s Game 1 win over Bucks

The Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks both lost important players in the opening game of their first-round series. But it was the Heat that escaped Game 1 with an impressive win to send a statement to the heavily favored Bucks.

Heat starting guard Tyler Herro broke his right hand late in the first half of Game 1 and never returned. Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo left Game 1 in the second quarter because of a lower back contusion and didn’t return.

Through it all, the Eastern Conference’s eighth-seeded Heat came away with an eye-opening 130-117 victory over the top-seeded Bucks on Sunday at Fiserv Forum to take a 1-0 lead in the series.

“There were a lot of moving parts throughout the course of the game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “There were some moments that got a little bit harrowing. But our guys showed a lot of grit to be able to handle a lot of different things.”

Heat’s Tyler Herro suffers broken right hand in Game 1 vs. Bucks. The latest on his status

Heat star Jimmy Butler was the catalyst behind it all, finishing with 35 points, five rebounds, 11 assists and three steals in 43 minutes.

“He’s just a brilliant competitor,” Spoelstra said of Butler. “He does it on both ends of the court and he has an innate feel for what’s necessary during the course of a game.”

After the Bucks cut the Heat’s 14-point lead to just three with 5:14 left in the third quarter, the Heat responded with a 24-13 run to regain control and enter the fourth quarter ahead by 14.

The Heat extended that lead to as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter. The closest Milwaukee got to Miami in the final period was eight points, as the Heat never allowed the Bucks to make a big run down the stretch.

Along with Butler’s excellent performance, the Heat also shot a season-best 15-of-25 (60 percent) from three-point range to outscore the Bucks 45-33 from beyond the arc. Milwaukee shot just 11 of 45 (24.4 percent) on threes.

Heat center Bam Adebayo contributed 22 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and two steals.

Bucks star forward Khris Middleton scored an efficient 33 points on 20 field-goal attempts. Bobby Portis finished with 21 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field off Milwaukee’s bench.

But the rest of the Bucks’ roster combined to shoot just 42.9 percent from the field.

The Heat controlled the game from start to finish, as the Bucks’ biggest lead of the game was two and it came in the opening minute of the contest.

Aside from Herro’s injury, the first half went about as well as the Heat could have hoped for.

The Heat entered halftime with a 13-point lead behind 24 first-half points from Butler. The Heat shot an efficient 8 of 14 (57.1 percent) from three-point range while the Bucks shot just 4 of 21 (19 percent) from beyond the arc in the first two quarters.

Game 2 of the series is Wednesday at Fiserv Forum (9 p.m., NBA TV and Bally Sports Sun).

“For us, I feel like a lot of us have been in moments where we’ve had uneven waters,” Adebayo said. “For us to come out here and go through what we went through, I feel like it just prepared us for this moment.”

Five takeaways from the Heat’s Game 1 win over the Bucks on Sunday:

Playoff Jimmy led the Heat in Game 1.

The Heat’s best player was aggressive from the start. Butler totaled 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field in the first quarter on his way to scoring 24 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the field in the first half.

Those 17 shots are the most that Butler has ever taken in a first half during his NBA career.

With the Bucks’ defense loading up on Butler in the second half, he adjusted to dish out seven of his 11 assists in the final two quarters. He also scored 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field in the second half.

Butler ended the night with 35 points on 27 field-goal attempts and eight free-throw attempts. He also tallied five rebounds, 11 assists and three steals.

Sunday marked the 13th time that Butler has scored 30 or more points in a playoff game as a member of the Heat.

The Heat outscored the Bucks by 17 points in the 42:53 he was on the court and was outscored by four points in the 5:07 he wasn’t on the court in Game 1.

But it wasn’t a perfect night for the Heat, as Herro broke his right hand late in the first half of Game 1.

Herro suffered the injury while diving for a loose ball in the final minute of the second quarter. Herro immediately attempted to head to the locker room, but remained on the court for the final seconds of the second quarter until the halftime buzzer sounded.

At halftime, the Heat announced that Herro broke his right hand. A broken hand takes weeks to heal, which means his availability for the rest of playoffs is now in serious doubt.

According to a league source, Herro broke his right hand in two places. TNT’s Chris Haynes reported that Herro is expected to miss the next four to six weeks, a timetable that would keep him sidelined through at least the first two rounds of the playoffs.

“He’s not going to play the next game and we’ll just figure it out,” Spoelstra said of Herro.

Herro recorded 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from three-point range in 19 first-half minutes before leaving the game.

The Heat opened the second half with Duncan Robinson in Herro’s starting spot. The question is whether Spoelstra decides to stick with Robinson to open Game 2 in Herro’s place or turns elsewhere. Other options on the roster to replace Herro in the starting lineup include Caleb Martin and Victor Oladipo.

The Bucks now wait to see if Antetokounmpo will need to miss more time in the first round.

While going up for a layup, Antetokounmpo came down hard on his back after crashing into Heat forward Love with 4:13 left in the first quarter. The foul was called on Love, but Antetokounmpo was slow to get up and immediately reached for his back.

Antetokounmpo remained in the game and made one of the two free throws, but left with 1:46 remaining in the opening period and immediately went back to the locker room.

Antetokounmpo re-entered the game with 9:56 remaining in the second quarter but quickly left the court again less than two minutes later, running straight to the locker room with 8:33 remaining in the period.

Antetokounmpo never returned, as he was ruled out for the rest of the night because of a lower back contusion. Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game that an X-ray on the injury returned negative.

“We’ll monitor him, see how he wakes up and see how he feels the rest of tonight and tomorrow,” Budenholzer said.

In his limited time on the court in Game 1, Antetokounmpo recorded six points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from the foul line and three rebounds in 11 minutes.

Antetokounmpo will have two days to recover before Game 2 on Wednesday, but there’s now uncertainty surrounding his status for the rest of the series. If Antetokounmpo can’t play or is slowed because of the injury, the Heat’s chances of winning the series suddenly increase dramatically.

The Bucks outscored opponents by 7.2 points per 100 possessions with Antetokounmpo on the court this regular season. With Antetokounmpo off the court, opponents outscored the Bucks by 1.4 points per 100 possessions.

Antetokounmpo has only played one full game against the Heat this season. He missed two of the four regular-season matchups because of left knee soreness and left another after just six minutes of action because of a knee injury.

Besides Butler’s greatness and the injuries on both sides, the story of the night was the Heat’s incredible shot-making.

The Bucks’ defense, which closed the regular season as a top-five unit, is known for limiting rim and three-point attempts.

Milwaukee was relatively effective in accomplishing that in Game 1, as Miami closed with as many combined rim and three-point attempts as it had from midrange. The Heat took 17 shots at the rim and 25 three-pointers compared to 42 midrange looks.

It’s just that the Heat made a lot of those shots, finishing 21 of 42 (50 percent) on midrange opportunities and 15 of 25 (a season-best 60 percent) on three-pointers.

Gabe Vincent shot 4 of 5 on threes, Love shot 4 of 7 on threes, Martin shot 2 of 3 on threes and Max Strus shot 2 of 4 on threes.

“I think we just took our shots when they were there,” Vincent said. “We didn’t overthink it, we made the simple play and shots went down.”

As a result, the Heat posted its sixth-best single-game offensive rating of the season at 128.7 points scored per 100 possessions. The Heat also set a new franchise record for the most points scored in a playoff game with 130.

“Right now, it’s by any means necessary,” Spoelstra said when asked about the Heat’s shot-making on Sunday. “I’m not even looking at that because the next game could be totally in the mud and it could be an Eastern Conference game in the 90s.”

For a team that finished the regular season with the NBA’s sixth-worst offensive rating (112.3 points scored per 100 possessions) and fourth-worst team three-point percentage (34.4 percent), the Heat’s shooting display in Game 1 against one of the NBA’s top defenses wasn’t expected. But it came at a very good time.

Love delivered a big performance off the bench in his first playoff game with the Heat.

Love finished with 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field, 4-of-7 shooting from three-point range and 4-of-4 shooting from the foul line in 23 minutes.

“You can just never underestimate the decorated veteran experience of guys that have been proven winners and that’s what Kevin brought us tonight,” Spoelstra said.

The Heat used four reserves in Game 1: Martin, Kyle Lowry, Love and Robinson.

Robinson only entered to play in the second half after Herro went out with a broken hand. Robinson played six minutes, making his only three-point attempt of the game in the final seconds of the third quarter.

Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Haywood Highsmith and Omer Yurtseven remained out of the Heat’s rotation.