Julius Randle, Knicks struggle in wire-to-wire blowout Game 3 loss to Jimmy Butler, Heat

MIAMI— Jimmy Butler returned and the Knicks just folded. Julius Randle, moving at ¾ speed through his abysmal 38 minutes, scored just 10 points on 4 of 15 shooting. The Knicks bench, an issue since the start of the series, was again ineffective, with Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes combining to miss 12 of their 16 3- pointers.

MIAMI — Jimmy Butler returned and the Knicks just folded.

Saving a terrible time to produce one of their most anemic offensive performances, New York was crushed Saturday afternoon by the Heat, 105-86, falling to a 2-1 series deficit.

Butler was a difference maker with a game-high 28 points while appearing to reinjure his sprained ankle in the third quarter. But he wasn’t the Knicks’ biggest problem Saturday.

They mostly have themselves to blame for the belly flop in Biscayne Bay.

The Knicks, trailing wire-to-wire, shot just 34 percent overall while missing (shield your eyes, children) 32 of their 40 3-point attempts. The misfiring was widespread.

Julius Randle, moving at ¾ speed through his abysmal 38 minutes, scored just 10 points on 4 of 15 shooting. Jalen Brunson missed all five of his 3-pointers.

The Knicks bench, an issue since the start of the series, was again ineffective, with Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes combining to miss 12 of their 16 3-pointers. Quickley also suffered a scary injury in the fourth quarter when Bam Adebayo fell into the guard’s leg. The backup guard limped to the locker room and didn’t return.

So there were no positives for the Knicks on Saturday. It was a wipeout from the paint to the perimeter.

Butler’s impact, meanwhile, was immediate. He scored on Miami’s first possession, selling a pump fake before converting a  floater. He stacked the box score in the first quarter — 10 points, two blocks, two rebounds, one assist, 5-for-9 shooting.

But Butler also turned his right ankle — the same one that kept him out of Game 2 — while falling to the court on a drive in the third quarter. He continued to play and moved well in the fourth quarter, helping seal the blowout.

Butler had six days to heal the original injury by skipping Game 2, and Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau was well aware of the challenge.

“I think that’s what makes him so tough is it’s so many different things,” Thibodeau said. “Whether it’s handling in a pick and roll, screening in a pick and roll, running the offense, getting to the free throw line. Post up. Shot creation and having an awareness of what’s going on in the game.

“Those have always been his strengths. Body position. He’s clever with the ball. So you try to make a guy like that work as much as much as you can for his points but it’s a lot more than just points. That’s the test that we face.”

Although the Knicks lost homecourt advantage with the Game 1 defeat, the road shouldn’t have been such a disadvantage. The Knicks were one of only three NBA teams with a better record on the road in the regular season. They were one of only five teams to have a better record on the road last season.

Thibodeau chalked up the road success to coincidence.

“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. Sometimes where you are in the regular season, the schedule dictates things. Like often times there’s a quirk in the schedule in the beginning of the year where we had a lot of games at home where we were on back-to-backs and they were early games and our opponent had multiple days off. So sometimes it’s things like that — it could be injuries at a certain time. But I think sometimes when you try to analyze that there’s a lot of factors that go into it during the regular season.”

The Miami crowd is famously fickle, and it arrived fashionably late Saturday. But the large pockets of Knicks fans were drowned out early because of the loudspeakers and the team’s slow start.

DUSTUP

A small scuffle broke out in the closing seconds of the third quarter. Randle and Cody Zeller were tied up fighting for a rebound, which turned heated when Zeller added a shove at the end.

Isaiah Hartenstein darted on to the scene to push Zeller. Caleb Martin shoved Hartenstein. It wasn’t a 1990s Heat-Knicks fight but it still resulted in three technical fouls (two on the Heat, one on the Knicks), ending with Butler dancing on the court.

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