NEW YORK — You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the Miami Heat don’t get better without Jimmy Butler. They do, however, get different when they’re without him — as they were for Game 2, with Butler sidelined by the nasty ankle sprain he suffered Sunday — and those differences created problems for the New York Knicks early and often Tuesday night.
Without its best man-to-man perimeter stopper, Erik Spoelstra dialed up a zone on 49 of Miami’s defensive possessions, according to Second Spectrum — up from just seven in Game 1.