{"id":46945,"date":"2025-03-26T07:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T07:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=46945"},"modified":"2025-03-26T07:06:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T07:06:27","slug":"what-we-learned-as-butlers-miami-return-ends-in-ugly-warriors-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=46945","title":{"rendered":"What we learned as Butler&#8217;s Miami return ends in ugly Warriors loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2025\/03\/25214038\/GettyImages-2206921944.jpg\" alt=\"Jimmy Butler's return to Miami falls flat as Warriors struggle to find spark vs. scrambling Heat defense - The Athletic\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Jimmy Butler III\u2019s return trip to Miami was less a revenge game than another stain on the Warriors\u2019 suddenly spiraling season.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State trailed from the start, never got close enough to touch the Miami Heat and wound up on the business end of a 112-86 walloping that delivered all manner of ominous signals.<\/p>\n<p>This loss, the Warriors\u2019 second in a row following a 124-115 beating by the Atlanta Hawks, continues their sudden return trip toward mediocrity. They\u2019ve lost three of their last five games, and this one was a profoundly unsatisfying conclusion to a game that came with tangled emotions.<\/p>\n<p>Four Warriors scored in double figures, led by Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s 15 points, but they were routed in every conceivable way.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three observations from a nightmare on South Beach:<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Butler vs. Wiggins<\/strong><\/h2>\n<div>\n<h3>Golden State Warriors<\/h3>\n<p>Find the latest Golden State Warriors news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Two names were on the marquee at tipoff: Jimmy Butler and Andrew Wiggins. They were traded for each other last month, and each was going to be a significant contributor to whatever happened on the court.<\/p>\n<p>There wasn\u2019t much of a battle, but Wiggins was superior. And his team won the war decisively.<\/p>\n<p>The former Golden State NBA All-Star finished with 10 points (4 of 13 from the field, 2 of 4 from beyond the arc), five rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals. He played 28 minutes and finished plus-2.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Wiggs picking up where he left off \ud83d\udd25 pic.twitter.com\/iKUwoyo0LX<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiamiHEAT\/status\/1904686081741648198?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Butler, who claimed this would be \u201cjust another game\u201d on the schedule, coped with a mixture of cheers and boos throughout. He finished with 11 points (5 of 12 from the field, 0 of 2 from deep), seven rebounds, two assists and two steals. He was minus-19 over 29 minutes.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jimmy went to work on this and-1 \ud83e\udea3 pic.twitter.com\/OWUv8uvNm1<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCSWarriors\/status\/1904704016984268955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>Weakened Offense Expected, But Defense Also Putrid<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Stephen Curry\u2019s absence always compromises Golden State\u2019s offense \u2013 and surely it did \u2013 but what is the excuse for the defense?<\/p>\n<p>After consecutive games with porous defense, the Warriors realized they needed to upgrade their intensity. They were unable to do it.<\/p>\n<p>The Heat cooked them in the first quarter, fired up a blowtorch in the second quarter and built 57-40 lead off 53.8-percent shooting from the field, including a preposterous 72.7 percent beyond the arc. Starting guards Tyler Herro and Alec Burks combined for 23 points on 8 of 10 shooting, including 5 of 6 from distance.<\/p>\n<p>Miami shot 55.8 percent from the field, including 68 percent from distance.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State in its two previous games allowed the Hawks to shoot 57 percent from the field, including 41.7 percent from deep, and the Toronto Raptors to post 56.4\/42.3 percent splits.<\/p>\n<p>Shoddy defense suddenly is becoming the biggest threat to the Warriors\u2019 hopes of staying above the NBA play-in tournament fray.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Bench Came To Play<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The only encouraging sign for Golden State came from the play of its bench.<\/p>\n<p>With Buddy Hield, Gui Santos and Kuminga leading the way, the Warriors\u2019 reserves punished those of the Heat, outscoring them 30-2 in the first half and 48-24 for the game. Hield scored 10 points and Santos had 13 on 5-of-8 shooting, including 3 of 6 beyond the arc. Santos and Gary Payton II (four points, 2 of 2 shooting) were the only two Warriors to shoot at least 50 percent.<\/p>\n<p>How bad was the overall bench discrepancy? Golden State\u2019s bench outscored its starters 30-10 in the first half and 48-38 for the game.<\/p>\n<p>This was, for the starters, one of the lousiest performances of the 2024-25 NBA season.<\/p>\n<p>Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Warriors wound up on the business end of a 112-86 walloping by the Miami Heat on Tuesday night that delivered all manner of ominous signals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":46949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[214,146,592],"class_list":["post-46945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-andrew-wiggins","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-warriors-observations"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What we learned as Butler&#039;s Miami return ends in ugly Warriors loss - 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