NBA playoffs: Heat beat Knicks...

With little under six minutes remaining in Game 2's fourth quarter, the Knicks displayed one of the rare instances in which they have seemed like themselves in this second-round series. After falling behind by three points and staring into a 2-0 hole, New York rallied and started to exert its will on the Heat without Jimmy Butler. They pounded the paint during a run that included two offensive rebounds, two loose-ball fouls, and eventually a corner 3-pointer by Josh Hart that tied the game and altered the atmosphere in Madison Square Garden.

Hart's three-pointer marked the end of a fast-paced series that lasted 67 seconds of game time but seemed, in the words of Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, "like a four-minute possession." It was the type of tough, demanding prolonged play that New York used during the regular season to defeat the young Cavaliers in Round 1 and earn the NBA's second-highest offensive rebound rate and third-most second-chance points. From that point on, the Knicks surged to victory, outscoring the Heat 18-9 in the final 4:45 of play to win Game 2 and level the series as it returned to Miami.

"The things that we take pride in — ball in the air, ball on the floor — they pretty much dominated that [in] those last six minutes," said Spoelstra.

How appropriate that the Heat used numerous comparable scenarios to send the series back to MSG and bring the Knicks within one loss of elimination. Over the previous eight days, Miami has mostly robbed New York of everything else, including its momentum, offensive effectiveness, and defensive demeanor. Why not its personality as well?

In the fourth quarter of Game 4 on Monday, Miami struggled mightily, making just 6-of-23 shots from the field and missing all nine of its 3-point attempts. It didn't matter, though, because the Heat, who finished just outside the bottom 10 in offensive rebounding percentage during the regular season and who grabbed less than 20% of their own misses against Milwaukee in Round 1, rebounded seven of those missed shots in the final frame, converting them into just enough second-chance points (7) to keep the Knicks at bay and complete a 109-101 victory to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.

Coming off a regular season in which they won a meager 44 games with a 25th-ranked offense and a negative point differential, the fact that the Heat are now only one win away from their third appearance in the Eastern Conference finals in the previous four years wasn't an ending many had envisioned. To hear Spoelstra tell it, however, all that time they spent battling and looking for solutions amidst injuries and erratic play — the six months in which a title contender dropped to the eighth seed, dropping its first game in the play-in tournament before barely eking out its second — prepared them to find their rhythm when it mattered the most.

Butler is capable of becoming the greatest player in each game he plays in. He can also accomplish just about whatever else Spoelstra may demand of him during the course of a game. (Ask Giannis, LeBron, Jayson Tatum, or AD.) Adebayo can begin the series by focusing on keeping Mitchell Robinson off the offensive glass before switching to averaging 20 points and 12.5 rebounds on 55% shooting in two victories, all while restricting Randle and guarding each and every other player wearing a Knick uniform at some point.

As a master tactician, Spoelstra is constantly able to influence the Heat to take advantage of any low-hanging fruit that is made available to them and to initiate changes on their own, such as switching the defensive matchups in Game 3 to put Butler on Barrett and Vincent on Brunson, rather than forcing them to be reactive and accept the terms of engagement. He also has the pieces needed to move them around the board: For all the pick-and-roll playmaking Herro does, his absence allows Spoelstra to use a rotation without any significant defensive problems, including a literal graybeard. Despite the fact that almost everyone, with the exception of Adebayo and Zeller, is a quality player, Kevin Love has been delivering solid effort when charged with displaying and recovering on high screens before returning to clear the defensive boards.