ATLANTA — Gabe Vincent hit a layup from under the post and gave a quick flex before heading back down the court.
The Miami Heat was in a funk before that basket, down eight points to the Atlanta Hawks midway through the second quarter on Sunday.
And then the run began.
Beginning with that Vincent layup, the top-seeded Heat outscored the Hawks 26-4 to close out the first half and never looked back to win Game 4 of the first-round series matchup 110-86 at State Farm Arena. Miami now leads the best-of-7 series 3-1 and can secure its spot in the Eastern Conference Semifinals as early as Tuesday when the series returns to FTX Arena for Game 5.
The second-quarter run turned a 37-29 Miami deficit into a 55-41 Heat lead by the time the teams went to the locker room. The Heat extended its lead to 80-61 by the end of the third quarter, with Max Strus hitting a pull-up three-pointer with 3.3 seconds left to cap the frame. Miami was up by as many as 26 points late in the fourth quarter, at which point coach Erik Spoelstra emptied the bench.
Jimmy Butler scored 13 of his game-high 36 points during that stretch, while P.J. Tucker and Vincent each had 5 points and Bam Adebayo 3 as part of the run.
Victor Oladipo, seeing his first game action of the series, served primarily as the offensive facilitator during that stretch — an important role considering the Heat was playing without starting point guard Kyle Lowry, who did not play while dealing with a hamstring strain he sustained in Miami’s Game 3 loss on Friday.
“You have to be smart about it,” Spoelstra said ahead of the game about Lowry’s injury. “The training staff determined that he wasn’t going to play tonight. We have everybody else available and that’s what we’re focused on right now.”
All five Heat starters scored in double figures.
In addition to his 36 points, Butler had 10 rebounds, four assists and four steals.
Tucker and Adebayo each had 14 points. Strus had 12 and Vincent, who started in Lowry’s place, had 11.
Oladipo, Miami’s sparkplug off the bench this game, finished with 6 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
Miami’s defense, meanwhile, was stifling. The Heat held the Hawks to 40 percent percent shooting from the field and 35.7 percent from three-point range.
De’Andre Hunter led Atlanta with 24 points. All-Star Trae Young, meanwhile, had just 9 points on 3 of 11 shooting.
Another key factor in Miami’s win: The Heat scored 25 points off 14 Hawks turnovers. Miami didn’t turn the ball over during the first half — the first playoff half in team history without a turnover — and had just six turnovers overall on Sunday. Atlanta scored just 10 point off those turnovers, nine of which came in the fourth quarter when the game was already out of reach.
