Miami Heat: Andre Iguodala has another marquee playoff moment in Game 6

Andre Iguodala has another marquee playoff moment to help the Miami Heat advance to the NBA Finals

Heading into Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a potential closeout game for the Miami Heat, the stage was set for a non-star player to step up to finish off the Boston Celtics. After all, we had already seen the likes of Jae Crowder, Tyler Herro, and Duncan Robinson rise to such moments earlier in this series.

In Game 6, it wasn’t any of those players. After Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, who combined to score 54 points on the night, it was the savvy veteran Andre Iguodala who emerged as a key spark off the bench throughout the night in Game 6.

Iguodala, who has been in big playoff moments time and time before with the Golden State Warriors, scored 15 points on a perfect night shooting from the field (5-5) and played solid defense in 28 minutes of action.

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He was part of Miami’s closing lineup in Game 6 and was a perfect 4-4 from 3-point land. On most nights, it’s his intangibles, basketball IQ, and experience (which often doesn’t appear in the box score) where his presence is felt on the basketball floor. However, Miami needed one “other” to step up in a scoring role to finally get over the Celtics hump.

Iggy emerged as just that.

Entering the game, the Heat had been in a pretty huge 3-point shooting slump. In fact, it nearly cost Miami the series. After Games 1 and 2, in which the Heat shot 44 and 33 percent from 3-point range, respectively, Miami was putrid from deep in the following three games.

In Games 3 and 4, Miami shot 27 percent from deep. In Game 5, they shot 19 percent from 3 and were quickly trending in the wrong direction.

For much of the year, much of the team’s offense predicated on its ability to shoot – and shoot effectively and efficiently – from deep. That was quickly falling apart on the biggest stage thus far.

During the regular season, the Heat was the second-best 3-point shooting team (38%) in the NBA. During the playoffs, they have shot 37 percent from deep. As you’d expect, the Heat managed to bounce back in a big way in Game 6.

Even after getting off to somewhat of a rough start from deep in that game, Miami would go on to shoot 48 percent from deep. A few sprinkled in here and there throughout the game from Iguodala showed once again why Miami elected to trade Justise Winslow (a promising young player) for Iggy and Jae Crowder at the 2020 NBA Trade Deadline.

It was exactly for the moment that unfolded in Game 6. With Crowder off his game for the last few games of this series, the Heat needed someone else to step up, give them some scoring to help take some of the offensive pressure off Jimmy Butler, Goran Dragic, and Bam Adebayo.

Andre Iguodala offered that, and then some in Game 6 to help close out the Boston Celtics. Iggy and the Heat are now off to the NBA Finals where they’ll both face a familiar foe in LeBron James. If it hasn’t been proven yet, it should be clear that this is no longer hyperbole: Andre Iguodala has been a huge help to the young Heat.

They’re now in the NBA Finals and Miami is hoping Andre Iguodala has a few more marquee playoff moments left in him.