The Miami Heat reached 30 wins by defeating the Lakers 113-107. In this way, those from Florida took advantage of the Nets’ stumble in Minnesota to rise to the head of the East with a balance of 30-17 that makes them the best in their tight conference, in which only one game separates the first from the classified fourth. The Angelenos, by contrast, fall to eighth in the West, and return to place with more losses than wins so far this season.
Despite the fact that the final score was relatively even, Eric Spoelstra’s team clearly dominated for many minutes, with leads that exceeded 20 points even in the last quarter. Although the Lakers came to press things in the last minutes thanks to a 7-25 run, their reaction came too late, and they did not have time to make it more than a scare for the crowd at FTX Arena. The Heat did not tremble in the final stages, and added enough baskets to prevent the Angelenos from taking the difference below 4 points and making it too difficult to close the match.
Butler breaks LeBron’s record
The Miami team was led in scoring by Duncan Robinson, whose effectiveness in the triple allowed him to reach 25 points. The shooting guard scored 6 of his 11 shots from the perimeter to punish the Lakers defense, and managed to add 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals to round off his performance. Jimmy Butler, meanwhile, signed an even more complete game, in which he reached 20 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds to add a new triple-double to his collection.
With this, there are already 13 triple-doubles that the forward has achieved throughout his career, and what is more important, 10 signed with the Heat jersey. In this way, he has become the player who has reached this record the most times playing for Miami, breaking the record so far held by LeBron just the night he faced him.
James, meanwhile, finished the match with 33 points, which made him the top scorer in the game despite his mistake on the outside shot (1/8). The one from Akron, however, managed to be much more effective in the paint (10/12), where most of his baskets came from, but yet he was once again unable to make his big numbers guide the Lakers to the victory. Russell Westbrook, with his 24 points, 9 assists and 9 rebounds, was once again his main support, but the rest of the men on the team were not as effective.
Avery Bradley, author of 15 points, was the best among the rotation players, but the truth is that he did not have much competition. Without going any further, Dwight Howard and Trevor Ariza, the other two members of the starting lineup, left without scoring, something especially bloody in the case of the forward, who also committed 4 turnovers in the 15 minutes he was on the court. Among the substitutes, the most outstanding was Carmelo Anthony with 11 points, which was not enough to survive the great moments of the Heat.
(Cover photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
