Miami won at the Garden!
Majami Hit beat the New York Knicks away, 108:101, at the start of a playoff series that is sure to revive the old, fierce rivalry from the 1990s. What will spoil the upcoming games though will be Jimmy Butler’s injury, a resurgent Miami leader, scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds at Madison Square Garden, then was injured in the final quarter. He ended the first match of the Eastern Conference semifinals with pain in his wrist, in which he had great support from Miami playmaker Gabe Vincent, who scored 20 points.
Miami has done a miracle in these playoffs when it did Butler carried through the series against the Milwaukee Bucks on his shoulders, the team with the best score in the entire league. And it goes without saying how necessary he will be for the Florida team in this series as well. In the duels against the Bucks, Butler averaged 37.6 points, and he played in the same rhythm on Sunday night in New York, where he had RJ Barrett (26 points) and Jalen Branson (25) opposite him, but not injured. Julius Randle, New York’s All-Star wing. Branson also shined in these playoffs, but this evening he did not play as he knows how, as he missed all seven shots from distance and also lost five balls. That’s why he took full responsibility for the defeat and declared: “Let this go to me”.
The next match will be played on Tuesday and if Butler cannot play, it will be a huge problem for his team and for everyone who expects a spectacle from this series, which will certainly happen.