(Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
The NBA playoffs have been fairly exciting so far after just over a week of action, and one reason why has been that there have been a few relatively unexpected developments.
One of them has been the fact that the Miami Heat have powered themselves to a 3-1 series lead over the Milwaukee Bucks despite being the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.
Miami did so because Jimmy Butler played at the zenith of his powers in Game 4 on Monday, scoring a career-high 56 points and powering them to a 119-114 win.
They rode Butler hard throughout the game — in fact, their second-leading scorer was big man Bam Adebayo, who had just 15 points.
It was the second-biggest gap between the top two scorers for a team in NBA playoff history.
Jimmy Butler had 56 points on Monday with Bam Adebayo next on the team with 15.
That 41-point difference in a team’s top-2 scorers is tied for the 2nd-largest in a playoff game in NBA history. Allen Iverson had 54 points in 2001 vs the Raptors, 44 more than any other 76er. pic.twitter.com/uIBhjln7xD
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 25, 2023
The Heat came in leading the series 2-1, and with Giannis Antetokounmpo returning for Milwaukee after being out since early in Game 1, it looked like his team was on its way to tying the series.
The Bucks led for much of the contest, and with an 89-78 lead after three quarters, it seemed almost like a foregone conclusion that the series would essentially become a best-of-three.
But Butler willed the Heat all the way back and into the lead, while the Bucks were seemingly paralyzed by his heroics.
He shot 19-of-28 from the field and 15-of-18 from the free throw line to put Antetokounmpo’s squad on the brink of elimination.
Miami will have the opportunity to become one of the rare eight seeds to knock out a top seed in the first round of the playoffs when the series resumes on Wednesday in Milwaukee.
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