MIAMI (AP) – The final rebound of the game fell into the hands of ‘s just a minute or two before the final buzzer, and started celebrating for two reasons.
First, he knew that Butler had just gotten a triple-double.
Two, Miami Heat had just won its home game.
Tyler Herro scored 23 points, Adebayo in a significant 14 in his first game after an absence of six weeks following surgery on his thumb and the Miami Heat dominated the Raptors to smack Toronto 104-99 Monday night.
“We’re just blessed to have a team like this,” Adebayo said. “Everyone buys. Everyone wants to compete. And everyone wants to do the work.”]
Adebayo played 32 minutes, shooting 4 in 12 and grabbing nine rebounds.
“You can see his energy there,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after his team virtually bowed out with Chicago for first place in the Eastern Conference. “It makes us different.”
Butler finished with 19 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds — the last of those coming when time ran out when the 3-point attempt failed. It was Butler’s ninth triple-double with the Heat, the highest number in the team’s regular-season history.
scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Toronto. VanVleet finished with 22 points and added 18 points and 10 assists for the Raptors. Scottie Barnes scored 16 points, scored 14 points and former Heat forward Precious Achiuwa grabbed 15 rebounds for Toronto.
Siakam scored a turnaround with 1:48 to make it Toronto back to 99-96, but PJ Tucker made a corner 3 with 20 seconds to run — on Butler’s 10th assist — to help Miami hold on.
Toronto has essentially used a six-player spin, with these players getting between 34 and 42 minutes. The only other raptor to get minutes was Justin Champagnie, who played 9:07 before leaving with a dislocated finger.
“We played as hard as we could,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “I didn’t see anything that changed. We fought from beginning to end. … This one could have gone either way. It was a great effort from our guys.”
The game was to be the Heat keeper’s first time playing against the Raptors since he left Toronto for Miami last season. Lowry helped Toronto win the NBA title on the way to the unofficial nickname GROAT — the greatest raptor of all time.
Lowry missed the game for personal reasons.
“I wanted to see it, of course,” Nurse said.
Lowry missed a pretty good one.
In the first 35 minutes there were 22 changes in the lead and 10 equations, which increased the teams to 75-75 at the end of the third quarter. Herro scored the final five points of the third quarter and then had the first bucket of the fourth to put Miami through seven.
The heat would no longer hang. Anunoby managed to get Toronto to two with 6:57 left, but Miami scored the following seven points within 59 seconds – a basket by Adebayo, a corner by Max Strus on 3 and an effort by Caleb Martin for a 98-89 lead.
