Heat-Bulls with plenty of subplots, but desperation ultimately at Friday’s forefront
As they waited to see if their season would continue, the Chicago Bulls received reaffirmation Tuesday night as they watched from Toronto: The Miami Heat are vulnerable.
Friday night, the Bulls will get the opportunity to test the degree of that vulnerability, when the teams meet in a winner–take-all NBA play-in tournament game at Kaseya Center.
The winner gets the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks starting Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in an Eastern Conference best-of-seven opening-round series.
The loser goes to the lottery.
“It’s going to be a desperate game,” Chicago forward Alex Caruso said after the Bulls eliminated the Toronto Raptors 109-105 Wednesday night in a game played for the right to face the Heat for the East’s final playoff berth. “They didn’t play great the last game against Atlanta, who punched them in the mouth early. I think they’ll be a little bit more prepared to fight from the beginning.”
How the teams got to this moment is a contrast in confidence.
The Heat fell behind by 24 early on Tuesday night against the Hawks, rallied, but were unable to complete the task in a sobering 116-105 home loss.
The Bulls, by contrast, went down 19 in the third quarter in Toronto but then rallied to extend their season.
“We know the stakes, we know the consequences, all that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after Thursday’s practice.
Basically, a one-game season.
“We put ourselves in this position,” Heat guard Tyler Hero said, “and like Spo said, we’ll do it the hard way.”
Now the question becomes whether the Bulls have the Heat’s number.
The Bulls went 3-0 against the Heat in the regular-season series, winning twice in Miami.
“We know going there it’s another great road test against a team that’s seasoned and is coming off a loss and will look to rebound and play to their identity and their style,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “We have a lot to get ready for.
“There’ll be some things I think we can take from those three games. But those are over now. This is a new opportunity, new challenge that will be in front of us.”
The Heat went to school Thursday on the Bulls, aware of the challenge ahead.
“I think one of the most underrated aspects of what they did this season is build a very stable, top-of-the-league type defense,” Spoelstra said. “Since the All-Star break, they have the number-one defense. But season-long, they have the fifth-ranked defense, which is marked improvement from last year.”
Like the Heat, the Bulls are a team that relies on concentrated scoring. In the three-game season series, DeMar DeRozan averaged 28.3 points against the Heat, Zach LaVine 19.5 and Nikola Vicevic 19. For the Heat, Jimmy Butler averaged 24, Bam Adebayo 20.7 and Tyler Herro 19. LaVine and Butler each missed one game in the series.
“You know the competitive greatness of Jimmy and Kyle [Lowry],” Caruso said. “We know they’ll be ready to play. It’s the same mindset for us: Be locked in and do what we do well.”
The Bulls’ dominance was decisive during the season series, outscoring the Heat by an average of 114 to 103.3, shooting .512 from the field to the Heat’s .453, and shooting .426 on 3-pointers to the Heat’s .339.
Beyond the statistics, there will be ample storylines. Already, the first seventh-place team to lose a game in the two-plus years of the play-in tournament, the Heat face becoming the first team to lose two home games in the play-in round.
As for individual subplots:
— Butler was traded by the Bulls on June 22, 2017 to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a package that included LaVine.
— Lowry and DeRozan spent six seasons as Raptors teammates.
— Bulls point guard Patrick Beverely remains miffed to this day about being cut by the Heat in 2010 training camp at the start of the Heat’s Big Three era with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
— Former Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. is a Bulls reserve.
— Donovan coached retiring Heat captain Udonis Haslem at the University of Florida.
— It will be the teams’ first postseason meeting since the Heat eliminated the Bulls 4-1 in the 2013 Eastern Conference semifinals on the way to the franchise’s third and most recent title.
Butler missed Thursday’s practice due to what the team said was a personal matter, but said Butler would be available Friday. Lowry left practice without comment.
As for the game itself, one team enters off the high of a stirring road rally, the other off a low of a disheartening home loss that has led to this last-chance opportunity to salvage a season.
To the Bulls’ Vucevic, it is a challenge that comes with confidence from the season series.
“Defensively, we did a good job on Jimmy and Bam and Herro, as well,” he said. “We will have to play better early in the game, especially against Miami, a team with a lot of experience.”
