The Miami Heat really could not have played much worse to start Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Monday night in Boston.
The Heat entered the game with a 2-1 series lead, but they played like they wanted Boston to tie things up. Miami missed its first 14 shots in the game. Fourteen!
Boston led 8-0, 18-1 and then 26-6 at points during the first quarter. The Heat finally started to play better in the second quarter and went into halftime down 57-33. In the third quarter, Boston extended its lead to as many as 32 points.
Everyone from Bam Adebayo to Jimmy Butler and PJ Tucker missed shots for Miami. At the time that Adebayo, Max Strus and Kyle Lowry were subbed out by the Heat midway through the first quarter, Miami’s starting five hadn’t made one basket!
It wasn’t until Victor Oladipo’s 3-pointer with 3:22 left in the first quarter that the Heat got their first field goal of the game. Oladipo continued to play well in the second quarter and was about the only Heat player capable of scoring.
Butler was playing in the game despite missing half of Game 3 due to knee inflammation, so that could help explain his poor shooting. The bad game was fairly inexplicable otherwise for the rest of Miami’s starters.
This was the kind of game you just flush down the drain if you’re the Heat.
