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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida: Jimmy Butler had a bandage on his right knee and a bandage on his left ankle. The starting point guard and the center of his team are unlikely to play in the second game of the NBA Finals. And his Miami Heat is coming off a one-sided loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Given all that, Butler believes there is a perception that this series is over.
“I beg to differ,” Butler said Thursday.
Say this for the Heat: They’re down, but they refuse to believe they’re close. Game two of the final is Friday night, with Miami preparing to be without point guard Goran Dragic due to a torn left plantar fascia and All-Star Bam Adebayo due to a newly diagnosed neck injury in addition to his problems. continuous on the shoulder.
“When it rains, it pours,” said Butler, who will play with a sore ankle in Game 2. “However, overall, we are still expected to win. We came here for a reason. We realize that we belong…. Obviously, we definitely need those two guys, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always said, the next man goes up when a man falls. “
The Lakers won Game One, 116-98, a score that didn’t exactly show how uneven things were for much of the game. Miami started on a 25-12 streak; the Lakers scored 75 of the game’s next 105 points, an astonishing flurry. A 13-point deficit in the middle of the first quarter turned into a 32-point lead in the middle of the third for the Lakers.
That, combined with Miami’s injury problems, seems to indicate that the Lakers are in full control of this matchup. Dragic had been Miami’s leading scorer in the first three playoff rounds. Adebayo is the best rebounder on the team and he is becoming a superstar.
Lakers coach Frank Vogel said he plans to have Dragic and Adebayo play. But even if they can’t go, Vogel said Miami’s lineup in the fourth quarter of Game One, a group that included Kendrick Nunn and Kelly Olynyk, who would see much bigger roles if Dragic and Adebayo are out, presents some challenges.
“They have an army of guys who play a great style of play, that’s very, very difficult to score,” Vogel said. “They work very hard on the defensive end and we have to prepare for whoever is in uniform.”
The Lakers have locked up LeBron James, who was one assist from extending his final triple-doubles record, and Anthony Davis made his debut in the final look easy with 34 points. But James doesn’t take anything for granted, revealing that he was up until 4:30 a.m. Thursday watching the Game One movie.
James said he saw many ways the Lakers can improve.
“We are playing an exceptional basketball team,” James said. “Obviously great coach. We have to keep understanding that when we get to the second game … they are going to make adjustments in the second and we must be prepared for that. “
Nunn had 18 points in the first game. He was Miami’s starter the entire regular season, finished second in rookie of the year voting, but has been used sparingly in the playoffs, in part because Dragic has been so good, in part because Nunn missed the first 25 days of Miami in the bubble because of its recovery from the coronavirus.
“I’m ready to play,” Nunn said. “I’ve been ready, I’ve been all season. He had to step forward, and that simple. I’ll be ready to play and compete and go out there and try to get a win. ”
The numbers clearly show that the winners of the first game usually prevail in a series. The Heat know it’s not an absolute rule. James too. Miami’s three NBA titles came after Game 1 losses in the final. James was part of two of those comebacks, and his third championship in Cleveland was won in the same way.
This feels a bit different, of course, given the injury concerns.
“This is when you feel most alive, when they test you competitively and challenge you in new ways, in different ways,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. “This is a quality opponent. This is the way the whole playoff system is supposed to be set up. It’s supposed to get harder and more challenging with each round and the best team to win in the end. “
