Heat earn gritty 96-92 Game 6 win over Knicks, advance to second straight Eastern Conference Finals
Heat earn gritty 96-92 Game 6 win over Knicks, advance to second straight Eastern Conference Finals
They did it. They really did it.
After barely squeaking past the play-in, guess who’s advancing to the conference finals for the third time in four seasons?
The Miami Heat have advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals with gritty 96-92 in Game 6 over the New York Knicks.
Jimmy Butler led the Heat with 24 points on 7-of-22 shooting, knocking down 10 of his 11 free-throw attempts. He also hauled in eight rebounds while dishing out four assists.
Bam Adebayo was stupendous on both ends, finishing with 23 points, nine rebounds, two steals and one block. Max Strus tallied 14 points with six rebounds on 4-of-11 shooting, while Kyle Lowry added 11 points, four rebounds, nine assists, three steals and one block on 4-of-6 shooting.
The Heat shot only 40.2 percent, knocking down 25.9 percent (7-27) of their 3-point attempts, but turned the Knicks over five more times (12-7) and nearly doubled them in the paint (38-20).
Jalen Brunson tallied 41 points on 14-of-22 shooting and 5-of-10 from deep. But outside of Brunson, the Knicks shot 26.5 percent and 25 percent (5-25) from distance. Brunson’s performance marked the first time since Patrick Ewing in 1990 that a Knicks player tallied three straight 30-point games in a single playoff run.
Three other players — Julius Randle (15), RJ Barrett (11) and Josh Hart (11) — were the Knicks’ three other double-figure scorers, but did so a combined 9-of-34 shooting.
The Heat now become the second-ever No. 8 seed to advance to the conference finals in any conference, the other being the 1998-99 Knicks, looking to take care of unfinished business from a year ago.
They will play the winner between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics, which concludes Sunday. Game 1 of the East Finals will be on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET on TNT.
This is a developing story. Stay tuned for updates.
Miami has been disrespected all year long, even with having the 4th most injuries all year long. But we straight up embarrassed all the naysayers, haters,doubters, the media, the bucks fandom, the knicks organization, and even a few of our fans are eating crow lol. I love miami heat so much we're so gritty, tough, and some very hungry underdogs. We have the best coach in the league and it's evident from all our undrafted players making plays all over. Also doing this with a supposedly wash love and Lowery, but championship experience trumps all lol. Heat culture is very real and this is what not tanking gets you. Like Sunman said earlier, we're playing with house mone, and next year more players are gonna want to join Jimmy, bam, and the squad.
Scot Forster should be known as "Heat Hater in Chief".