MIAMI (AP) — Jimmy Butler scored a playoff career-high 45 points, including a personal 7-0 run in the final moments, and the Miami Heat held off the Atlanta Hawks 115-105 in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference first-round series Tuesday night.
Tyler Herro scored 15 for Miami, while Max Strus scored 14 and Gabe Vincent added 11 for top-seeded Miami, which took a 2-0 lead over the eighth-seeded Hawks.
Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 19 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter for Atlanta. Trae Young scored 25 for the Hawks, while De'Andre Hunter had 16 and John Collins finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Hawks.
Butler's previous playoff best was 40, done twice, both in the bubble when the Heat made the 2020 NBA Finals. The Heat needed all of his heroics then, and they needed them all on Tuesday as well.
Bogdanovic's 3-pointer with 3:15 left got Atlanta within 104-101.
From there, it was all Butler.
He had a dunk, a 3-pointer and another dunk — all in the span of 56 seconds — to turn things from in doubt to locked down, putting Miami up 10 with 1:20 remaining and ensuring the Heat would finish off the win.
“Just staying aggressive," Butler said. “Taking what the defense gives me."
As would be expected in a playoff series, pleasantries began being exchanged with more regularity. The first half featured 16 fouls by Atlanta and 14 by Miami — a season-high for the Hawks, one off the season-high for the Heat, and those 30 personals didn’t even include a double technical that Lowry and Hunter got for getting face-to-face.
Young picked up a technical for arguing a foul against him late in the third as well, the capper to a period where the Heat went from barely ahead to holders of a double-digit lead going into the final 12
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