Jimmy Butler has cooled off considerably from his pre-ankle-injury start to the postseason, and now the Miami Heat trail the Denver Nuggets 2-1 in the NBA Finals. Ethan Skolnick and Greg Sylvander look back at prior Heat appearances in the NBA Finals, when things look bleakest, and try to find a path forward for a team that seems to need someone else to step up.
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that's 954-566-5678. And now, today's episode. All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor.
Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. You can follow me, Ethan J. Skolnick at 5 Reasons
Sports. I got Greg Sylvander. You can follow him at Greg Sylvander. Night off for Brady and Alex,
although Alex was at practice with me today and then he decided to do a media open run.
So we'll see how that goes over the next couple of days, how sore Alex is. He might be on the
injured list with Jimmy Butler. We're going to talk today about sort of competing circumstances
here, the past and the present, and how this fits with the Heat having a 2-1 deficit in their series
against Denver. And I was down there today. I got a chance to speak to Udonis Haslam for about 10
minutes. That's already up on the podcast feed. Udonis, of course, gave great perspective on all
his Finals appearances, actually got in the game, Game 3. That was not really the plan,
but that's actually only the sixth Finals that he's gotten into because he did not get into the
2020 Finals. I didn't realize that until last night, but he got a few seconds in the last ones.
He's actually participated in six Finals and been part of a team that's been in seven different
Finals. And he talked about the conversations he's having with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo,
and others about putting this all into perspective. And sort of the past also,
the fact that in 2006, the Heat were down 2-0, and they came back and won four straight. Dwayne
Wade saying, we're not going to go out like this. And then other Finals that didn't look like they
were going so well, but you just get through it. And he said, look, this is not fun. This is hard.
Nobody is enjoying this. You don't enjoy it until the parade. That's it. Because I said,
has this made this season more enjoyable for you than when we talked all during it,
when you said this was a miserable last season for you? And he says, nah. He says, well,
he says F no, actually. He said, of course not. He says, until it's over, I'm not going to enjoy
any of it at all. And I think that's kind of where the Heat are. But Greg, that's what we
want to get into. Because when I look at the present of this series, it looks daunting,
to be honest. Okay. The Denver Nuggets two best players are playing at a really high level.
They're both healthy. They're connected. All the role guys know what they're supposed to do.
Jokic and Murray just did something that no tandem of players has ever done in NBA history,
putting up 30 point triple doubles and doing it in a Finals game. They got pretty decent
performances out of a couple of role guys, even though KCP and Michael Porter Jr. are still
struggling. And on the other side, the Miami Heat got here in port because they got playoff
supernova Jimmy. And we have not seen that guy in a long time. And when I spoke, Greg,
to people who've watched the team the whole year, not the out of town media,
but people who work for the organization, people, broadcasters, the organization, et cetera.
They're concerned because we haven't seen that Jimmy in a while. And I posted this stat yesterday
on Five Reasons Twitter account. Seven of the first eight postseason games, Jimmy Butler shot
50% or above. Okay. Seven of the first eight, including all six prior to Josh Hart taking out
his ankle. In the last 12 postseason games, he has shot 50% or better once. This is a guy who shot
over 60% from the field in the regular season after the all-star break. So he went through
that entire period shooting at an incredibly high level. Did the same through the first eight games
of the postseason and through the last 12 games of the postseason, he's shooting around 41%.
The only game that he has shot 50% or better, he took only 10 shots. So he was five of 10.
It's not even a sample size. So we're going to look back and we're also going to look forward
at where we are and the series. And my concern is that we're going to talk about a lot of things.
We're going to say, well, this has happened before. And Dwayne was able to pull them out of
this, or this guy was able to pull him out of this. Greg, I don't know that they got a guy
out of it this time. Am I wrong? You might not be. To illustrate what you're talking about,
just in game three alone in the Murray-Jokic ball screens, which it's just insane. They
set a total of 38 on ball screens and they scored 1.4 points per possession
on any on ball screen Jokic and Murray. That would be the best transition offense in the league.
And they're doing on ball screening and getting to that points per possession. By comparison,
the Heat's top screening duo, Bam and Jimmy, 19 on ball screens in game three for only 0.69
points per possession. What I mean by that is that the Heat's best players have to rise to
the level of Denver's best players. We'll talk about the others and such, but ultimately,
I think that there is an element of this where they are honing in on Jamal Murray.
And a large part of that comes down to Jimmy Butler's focus. And so for him to go supernova,
it's tough for him to also cut down the head of the snake in Jamal Murray. And so they have to
find that balance there. It's the biggest, most daunting task they've had so far this postseason.
I think that there are things in terms of mixing up coverages and things that they can do to still
make this interesting. They still need good three point shooting because it changes the
complexion of everything. Denver changes as a team from a disposition perspective
when they get punched in the mouth by another team offensively. So Miami needs that. But at this
point, it's hard to say, oh, well, Jimmy's just going to come and save them because Jimmy's being
asked to do so much defensively. And also, we haven't seen him play that way. His mobility
doesn't look the same. His lift doesn't look the same. So we said pre-show and I'll say it again
here. I think we're good for one of these games, Jimmy, to go off and be the Jimmy Butler that,
you know, is insane. He's still getting almost 30. So like, look at how amazing in in relative
terms he is that we're saying he's having okay games and not Jimmy games when he's around 28, 30.
I think you can count on one huge game, but to get four, it's going to be a team effort.
But you mentioned it with him and Murray, and I think this is where we've gone a little bit
because, of course, the matchups are him and Murray and they're Jokic and Bam.
But in terms of the marquee here, it's really Jimmy and Jokic, even though they're not guarding
each other. And yet Jimmy's being outplayed by Murray. And that's problematic because it's not
just, again, the offensive end. Jimmy didn't look good defensively in the last game and he's got a
golf ball on his ankle. And it does not appear that that is, first thing, not appear, it's not
going to heal until he takes some time off. Okay. This was an injury and I've said this before and
people were asking me if there's a report. It's not a report. It's just common sense. Okay. And
it's what people around the organization have said. If this was the regular season, Jimmy would
have shut it down for two or three weeks at the minimum with what happened against the Knicks.
But he couldn't. And so we've talked about it like, well, if he gets two days off, if he gets
three days off, he's going to, this is not about two or three days. Like he looked a little bit
more spry at the beginning of this game. But if you look at the rim stuff, that's where this is
ugly right now. He is getting to the spot. He just can't finish. Like everything is going
up short. And, and this is why, I mean, you look at their rim numbers in game three, they were
horrific. Okay. So we can talk about the threes, but Spoh, I think was more concerned about the
rim stuff. Like, I mean, you, you can't, you shouldn't shoot another 40% at the rim. You're
not winning that way. I mean, unless you just go nuclear from the three point line, which nobody
was doing. And so that's my concern about this now is that, you know, there has always been this
thing with the role players have played well, right? Okay. Well, Caleb had some moments in
this last game. He looked better, but he hasn't been what he was in the previous years, right?
Duncan and Shrews. I don't know what you're going to get night tonight. We just don't
Gabe. I think you can count on, but the foul trouble took him out of this last one. And
that's the problem. Lowry has been very up and down. And so it's just kind of like,
you get to this point, you're like, okay, you need, you know, Bam is doing kind of what,
you know, you, Bam was seven of 21, but I had no problem with the aggression. He had, he had,
he struggled to finish also, but really this is about getting supernova Jimmy. That's what this
has been all about all along. And, and I know what you say, maybe he can get there for one game.
They need to win more than one. Yeah. They need to win three. And so here's a couple of keys.
In game three, they had 25 uncontested three point attempts and they made only 10.
They were three of 16 open looks with the closest defender, four of six feet away,
seven of nine on wide open looks for the closest defender, six plus feet away.
Like their wide open looks have decreased over the course of the series from 16 in game one
to 10 in game two to nine in game three. You see where this is going. The Celtics are going
Why do I keep doing that all finals? I'm so sorry. That's the fourth time. I'm sorry to
all of our listeners. The nuggets are going to stay home on Bam and Jimmy eventually and say,
let's see the shooters win. And so this is the one thing that I also want to sneak in here before we
go any further. Look at the minutes log last game for Jamal Murray and for, um,
Jokic. I think that he'd have an opportunity to push pace in game four. There's only the one
day in between. Get out, do something that is a little counterintuitive to what you expect Miami
to do and try to push the pace a little bit to try to just, as we've talked about, get weird
against this Denver team. That's something I'm looking for in game four, big time. Yeah. Let's
see if there's a different strategy from Eric Spolstra, uh, in terms of that, because he's
all these defensive coverages at Denver and Jokic spoke to that today and he does say that the heat
are making it difficult for him, but it's hard to know. Yeah. It's not that difficult. I mean,
come on. Well, I mean, cause he processes everything. He processes everything so
quickly that it's just, it's, it's just crazy. And I, again, watching Jokic the rare time,
you know, on a league pass occasionally, or the very rare time the nuggets are on national TV
is one thing seeing him three straight games. I think you get an appreciation for the level of IQ
that can ask you a question because you're old enough. I can ask you this. And I got to watch
Hakeem Olajuwon live. Is it like watching Hakeem where you're like, Holy crap. He is thinking about
the air ZD even more than it's a little different. Cause I felt like Hakeem was a better athlete
than Jokic. Um, and he had certain places on the floor. I mean, the dream shake and all that,
that he was just unstoppable, but there was an IQ level with Hakeem, obviously that's translated
to post retirement and everything else that was off the charts. And I, I, I believe that Hakeem
is the most underrated player in NBA history and an underrated superstar in NBA. I'm with you.
Right. Um, and I think what we're seeing with this guy and Hakeem had more charisma and personality
than Jokic does. And I think, I mean, I'm getting tired of these press cars, but Jokic literally
looks down as he's speaking, like, it's going to be very hard to sell this guy. Okay. I mean,
when you're talking about hard to sell Giannis, Giannis smiles, like it's, it's different. Okay.
Um, Giannis has a sunny personality. Giannis, you know, goes to the drive through it, uh,
Chick-fil-A or whatever. Jokic is, he's a tough sell, but to watch him play, I understand there's
some flopping there. I get it. It's not at the NBA level, no matter what he fans are saying,
but the way he plays is it's really beautiful basketball. I mean, there was,
there was one cut. I don't know if it was, uh, Christian Braun who finished it, but
there was, it might've been, but it was, it was, it was Murray to Jokic. And then there was like,
then I'm like, that is just textbook. I mean, they, they really, and I don't even know if it's
Mike Malone. Honestly, I know Mike Malone is a very good coach. I believe he's the best coach
that the heat of face in the post season so far, but it just, it just feels like it's this guy.
It's like, it's like coaching LeBron. It's like, he's just going to do things that are almost
uncoachable at a certain point. And they have, they have a system now where everybody understands
that it goes through these two guys. And yes, Michael Porter jr is struggling. Gordon sometimes
disappears, but it doesn't matter. Um, but that's why I want to pivot a little bit because sometimes
we do this in series and we say, Oh, they can't overcome this and they can't overcome that. And
then you always sort of caution me and I'm going to, I want, we should look back at these previous
final series because I think we felt this way about some others actually. And then it just
flipped on a dime. So we'll talk about that in a second. We do want to mention a couple of great
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I also want to mention the series is going at least five games. He fans are hoping it's two,
two Monday night, whatever it is, three, one, two, two. We're doing a watch party at
tropical distillers. That's an Alipada about 10 minutes outside of downtown Miami. Uh,
we're going to have a big crew there. We're going to have a lot of people from the five
reasons sports network. We give them away t-shirts, all kinds of other stuff. It's
going to be also for those who do this $40 all you can drink the whole night. So it's a better
deal. It's a better deal. They're going to get in downtown Miami. Uh, it's a great spot. We've
had a couple of watch parties there already. So look for it on the Twitter account. I let's go
back in time a little bit before we go ahead to Monday though. So there, there have been some
series. It looked like, okay, they don't have a chance. Uh, 2006 down to nothing down in that
third game. Dwayne, we're not going out like this. I talked to UD about that today. They won
four straight 2011, probably not the best example because they won game one. They were up in game
two. They look like the team that was sort of insurmountable and formidable. And of course,
LeBron went in the tank and Mike Bibby killed them and they lost, uh, to Dallas in that series
2012. Um, they lost game one against OKC came back and won four straight early in that series.
A lot of narratives that Durant was passing LeBron that, that, that, uh, this young core
with the top five picks of Westbrook Harden and Durant six men in the year and all that Miami
after that game one, people were saying that core was going to run the NBA for the next decade.
Anyway, continue. And none of them have ever, well, Durant won a championship. Do we count
them? He won two, but yes, I know in Stu got his personal record book. They don't count,
but he didn't win one there. Westbrook has never won one and Harden's never won one as we know.
Right. So that didn't end up happening. 2013, that series had more swings than pretty much
any final series we've ever seen, right? Spurs win game one heat with a blowout winning game two
game three, the Spurs, it wasn't home. They won by 36, a lot worse beating than we just saw.
Then of course there was the deal where Greg Popovich decided to put Tiago splitter on
Dwayne Wade to start game four. Dwayne took over in that game, made it two, two Spurs,
win game five heater down again. And of course, game six, Ray Allen shot in game seven.
LeBron finishes the deal in the heat, win a championship. 2014 is, is the worrisome one,
Greg. Cause that's the one I, I, I said before this series that this nuggets team reminded me
more of that Spurs team than any of the teams that the heat of face in the postseason recently.
If you look at that series, game one was the AC game, the heat one game two by two. So very
similar to what we just saw where the heat pulled out a tight game in Denver. They pulled out a
tight game in San Antonio and then they were blown out the next three games. Yeah. And then I'll go
to this one and then I'll let you comment on the overall 2020 bubble, weird circumstances,
one similar circumstance to this in the sense that no hero this time, no draggage that time,
bam limited when he did play a game one, Laker blowout game two Lakers win again.
Then we got supernova Jimmy in game three to win. Lakers win a close game in game four,
three, one Jimmy heads off elimination in game five, again, with one of his best games ever.
And then the Lakers with a complete destruction in game six, where the heat ran out of gas,
the pessimists would say, this is a little reminiscent of 2020 where a heat team runs out of
gas, doesn't have a core player that it may have needed. And then I don't think we're seeing Tyler
hero the rest of the series. So I think we can put that one to bed 2014, or it is a little like
2014 where you win a game to tie up the series, but you just clearly not as good as the other
team, 2014. Those would be the two negative examples, but the positives are 2006. The
positive is 2013, where it was a series that kind of teetered both ways the whole time, 2012,
where it maybe looked like you were not the better team earlier in the series. And then
you rolled off a bunch of wins after that, which is this most similar to.
I mean, I think on the surface, everyone's going to point to when San Antonio steamrolled Miami
and look like the more connected, talented team in Miami, just straight up ran out of gas. I think
that that's the most logical connection. But if you think we're ending this show by me connecting
this run to that run, you are out of your damn mind, because I think there are elements of the
way that Miami came back against Dallas in 06. And also the way that they've gutted out that win
with the improbable Ray Allen bucket to win in 2013. And I say this because let's be honest,
a little bit of luck is going to come into play here. And the heat can get a little bit of luck
that that's not unprecedented. It's also going to take an unbelievable individual effort from
somebody. I think Bam and Jimmy, you're up for that challenge. You may not need it from them
every night, but you may need one of them each to have it a unbelievable game. And the last thing
I'll say is when you see guys like chain baddie have huge game sevens, Mike Miller's have shoeless
game fives or whatever that was against Oklahoma City. When you see Ray Allen hit that big shot
there in the corner. All I'll say is that this team has the same type of alpha minded players
to hit those types of shots. So all I would say is that as much as it feels like that was a game
where Miami moves out class, they have a chance to respond in game four. And then you're in a series
two, two where anything can happen. So ultimately they're still in this series, but it's going to
require these things to happen where it's not going to be a series where they can just go blow
for blow with this team and hope that they're standing at the end. They're going to need to
do something out of the ordinary, but this team is used to doing that. Or, you know, we've seen
it throughout this run. So I still feel good. Game four is going to tell us everything.
They're going to need somebody besides Bam and Jimmy. They need somebody to do what Kayla did
against Boston. And I just don't know who it's going to be, but they got to find that guy
because I think right now Bam and Jimmy are overmatched by Yokich and Murray. And I think
a lot of it is health related with Jimmy, but I don't think that we're going to see Jimmy and
Bam do the kind of thing that we just saw Yokich and Murray do. I don't think we're going to see
that in any game in this series. I think we can see it again for a quarter. I think we can see
some of it defensively because both guys are better defensively than their counterparts,
but I don't think we're going to see that offensively. Somebody else has got to play
above his head. Somebody, because look, you look at, you've got Denver, you've got Porter playing
below his numbers, okay? You've got, and I think that will continue. He does not look right as a
shooter right now. Mike Malone was trying to prop him up in his defense and he's not a great defender.
He was trying to prop him up as a rebounder. He had seven in the last game. KCP has been okay
defensively, hasn't given them anything offensively. And even Bruce Brown, to me, has been a bit of a
disappointment in the series. I love his game, but he hasn't really contributed much. I mean,
really, again, the rookie gave him something in the last game. Seven of eight, almost all on cuts
coming straight out of the offense and just hustle, okay? And that's pretty much it. Somebody
on Miami, though, has got to be better than all of those guys. There's got to be somebody who's
going to step up. Now, is it Duncan with more minutes if Max continues to struggle? Maybe,
because he has that ability to carry you for a quarter or two. We've seen it, okay? Is it
Caleb getting right here? Because I thought he looked a little better in this past game. He had
that one, as I mentioned, he had that one kind of surge and that was about it. Is it Kyle? Can we
throw back Kyle for a little bit of time? Maybe. Or is it what we saw for the first couple games
from Gabe? You know, who I, again, I thought was taken out of the game by the foul trouble in the
last game. But they've got to, it's got to be, and again, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a
certain official is officiating game four. And yes, they have two wins against him in the postseason,
and I say against him, but it's about time for Scott Foster in this series. We've already seen
Tony Brothers. We've seen Zach Zarba. It seems like that's the next logical guy here. They are
going to have to find a guy, because that guy is not going to be Tyler Hero. And just to close the
loop on this, as we now enter game four and the Heat have already declared him out, can we stop
with everything? Can we stop? Because, look, I have- Can I sneak in and say that I was abundantly
wrong? I was communicating closely with people who are near and dear to Tyler, and he was feeling
great after workouts. But what happens after the day after, I'm not always privy to, and it appears
as if it was overstated how quickly he could return. And shout out to Sean Rochester, who was
first, first, first on pulling back on the Tyler Hero optimism to play. But it's not- It wasn't just
that. See, this is why- And we need to address this. Because this stuff is fluid, like you said.
But it's also not just about one thing. It's not just- We were talking about when he was going to
get cleared physically, right? That's not the same as being ready to go out on the court and compete
in the finals. And that's why I was cautioning people, don't expect him. And the national media
was rolling with this. He's going to be back for game two. I don't know where the hell that came
from. Okay? And I don't know where that source came from, because I think whoever that source
was- No, but I know who reported it. I'm trying to figure out who, because whoever reported,
whoever leaked that, or speculated that, and he went with it- It wasn't the Heat.
No, it wasn't. And it did Tyler a disservice. It doesn't make any sense for somebody close to Tyler
to put that kind of pressure on Tyler to come back when he wasn't ready to come back, or they
weren't ready to have him back. And I'll just say this. I talked to somebody who's been around the
organization a very long time. I'm not going to say how long, because then you'll be able to
narrow it down to about five or six people, okay? Who said, this has never worked for us.
We brought Zo back in 2001, right? And that time was 13 games left in the regular season. And that
was a complete disaster. They were eight and five. They won 50 games, but not because of Zo,
okay? They got to a certain point, and it was Anthony Mason, that group. And then they were
eight and five in the last 13 games, and then Zo came back. He came back for the eight and five
stretch, and then they got blown out in the first round of the playoffs by Charlotte, okay?
Didn't work that time. They did it with UD in 2011, after he missed nearly the entire season.
They brought him back against Boston, if you remember, and he missed the backboard. He was
not ready to go for- He was not- About a week and a half later, they threw him in against Chicago.
They shut him down, and then he was more ready, and he had that incredible stint against Chicago,
like those 12 minutes where he was unbelievable. They did it with Bosch, but again, didn't work
at first. They did it with Bosch in the 2012 playoffs because they had no choice. Chris was
not ready to come back, but they were playing Ronnie Turrioff and others, and they threw him
back after the Indiana series into the Boston series, and he was not good in that series either.
There's one more. They brought Timmy back after the first round when Anthony Carter
played against Detroit, and they likely could have had Timmy sit out another round,
if you really want to be honest about what would have been best for him. They played him,
and it didn't work out in round two against New York. You're talking about four of the most
important players in Miami Heat history, okay? Zoe, Timmy, Chris Bosch, and Udonis Hazlitt.
Four tough-minded guys, right? Three guys are going to be in the Hall of Fame,
one who might get a statue here, okay? Three guys who are in the Hall of Fame,
and one who might get a statue here. It didn't work with them, and then there's also the history
that we've talked about with Stan Van Gundy in Orlando bringing Jameer Nelson back for the
finals and regretting that, and Spoh is very aware of that history. He and Stan are extraordinarily
close, and we thought that they were going to throw Tyler Hero back into a final series.
Again, context matters. These situations are fluid, but I don't think it was ever particularly
likely that he was going to play in the finals, and then there's also, I guess we talked about
the other issues related, was he going to get blamed for it if he came back and he screwed
things up? I mean, now, I guess if you're down 3-1 and he's cleared and he feels good,
then what the hell, right? I mean, Michael Beasley played in that, we talked about that
2014 series. Look at how many minutes Beasley got in the last game because Spoh had no other
options. Eddie House in 2011, remember that? The last game, Eddie House played like 25 minutes.
It's not going to come to that this time. Other guys to go to, so I guess it's possible that he
goes to Tyler Hero here because he'd be better than either of those guys were, but that was a
to ask of Tyler from the very beginning. And so look, the Cavalry is not coming.
Jimmy's ankle's not going to get miraculously better. They can win this series. There's
precedent for them to come back and win this series and things not to be as bad as they may
seem, but somebody on this roster or maybe two somebodies has got to play way above their head
right now and give Jimmy and Bam some help because I do not believe with what Bam is dealing with,
the guy that he's got a guard, okay, and all the responsibilities he has and then what Jimmy's
dealing with with his ankle and other issues that are going on right now, they can't beat
Jokic and Murray. They need help to do it. They need significant help. So whether it's Gabe or
Caleb or Duncan or Max or Haywood Highsmith or any of these other guys, they got to find one or two
who are going to play way above their heads here to help get them to the finish line. All right,
thanks to Greg. Thanks to our sponsors, markbrownpa.com, allproconstructionbuilders.com,
prizepicksuseofcode5five. We'll see you at the watch party on Monday night. Playback for game
four. Greg will be in charge of that. Me, Alex, and Brady will be at the game. And again, check
out the episode I did with you, Don. It's only six minutes, but I mean, it's worth it. It's always
worth it when I get time with him. I literally pulled him aside, trying to keep him away from
all the, he's like, I don't want to deal with any of this, all the international reporters. And
he started giving the gold that he usually does when he gives his interviews. So he basically said
95% of the league doesn't care. If you care, you're already ahead of the rest of them.
They care. We'll see if they have enough. And that's it for today.