So good. We knew this series was going to be basketball porn for us basketball junkies who love Xs and Os on plays and shot creation, and it more than lived up to the hype. Both coaches couldn’t stop talking about how tough it was to get their game plans to work, and I can’t wait to see what’s on deck for Game 2.
Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics (-2.5), 7:00 pm ET
Team Totals: Heat 103, Celtics 105.5
Injury News: Gordon Hayward (ankle) has been upgraded to doubtful (more below) and Javonte Green (knee) is doubtful, Chris Silva remains out.
Heat Expected Starters: Goran Dragic, Duncan Robinson, Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Bam Adebayo
Celtics Expected Starters: Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Daniel Theis
Heat Rotation Notes: Spo went 10 deep in both halves, Duncan Robinson’s three fouls kept him to three minutes in the first half, two minutes of Kendrick Nunn with Dragic (Robinson foul trouble), no Kelly Olynyk overlap with Bam, Tyler Herro closed again (duh) and came in early for Duncan foul trouble, Crowder and Bam played the full fourth and OT (Dragic just missed under a minute).
Celtics Rotation Notes: Brad Wanamaker had a 10- and 14-minute stint in each half, two minutes of Grant Williams at the five in 2Q and two in OT (Theis foul out), Jaylen and Smart continue to get big overlap with each other, Semi Ojeleye didn’t play after half (nine minutes in first half).
Spo Quotes: He said the Celtics’ defense kept the Heat from getting into a good offensive rhythm, his team has to be detailed in every possession, he suggested that “everyone was on the same page” about how tough it was against the Boston defense and that they basically just let Jimmy handle the key possessions and they “just put the ball in their best player’s hands” when the game was on the line. On Tyler Herro, Spo said the Heat “need a lot of the skill set that he brings” like off-dribble plays and shooting against a well-disciplined defense. On Wednesday, he said the Heat “were getting our asses kicked going into the fourth quarter.”
Stevens Quotes: He said he wanted to improve on transition defense (more below), he said the Celtics need to figure out new ways to attack because of Bam being such a “tremendous defender” and mentioned they need to especially late. Stevens said the lack of the ball movement on offense was because he thinks “obviously the switching has something to do with it,” he said there was “too much pounding of the ball.” He said the Celtics were playing too slow, and he said he trusts Jayson Tatum to make the right decision (was asked about driving to the basket after he shot the three at regulation buzzer).
Overall Notes
*Shoutout to our guy Drew Dinkmeyer for identifying that there could be a hit to assists in Boston. They only had 38 potential assists in an OT game, which puts them at 0.72 potential assists per minute from 0.83 in the regular season and 0.84 in the first two rounds of the playoffs. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a 15% decrease.
*Shoutout to me, saying the wide-open trey output was going to be way down in this series. The Celtics went just 3-of-9 on wide-open treys while the Heat went 8-of-12 on theirs. The Celtics were at 15.2 per game in the previous playoff games without as much of an OT factor while the Heat were at 13.9. The Heat allowed a playoff-low 11.1 wide-open treys per game in the playoffs while the Celtics aren’t too far behind at 13.6 for fifth best.
*Another stat that really rang true was the Celtics also consistently getting late shots. They had a whopping 20 shots with 0-4 seconds left on the shot clock, which crushes the 8.4 they had in the previous playoff games. In Game 1 Matchups, it mentioned how the Heat cause teams to take so much time to get shots off as one of the best in the league.
*Both team just totally shut down shooting off drives, keeping each other below 39% on those shots (36.8% for Boston, 38.5% for Miami).
Celtics Notes
*Just quickly on Hayward: He went through work with the coaching staff, so that would suggest he didn’t go through a full practice. Stevens had said game work and practice are different, so you’d think it would be a big surprise he’s out there. Although, Ira Winderman reported that the league doesn’t like when players go from “out” to “questionable”, so keep an eye on this one.
*In Game 1 Matchups, I had mentioned that Kemba Walker was headed for a tough series. While he did have a brutal game to start, he had a lot of bad luck. He was just 4-of-13 on uncontested shots (2-of-6 contested), and he missed all four catch-and-shoot shots (two wide-open). The Heat were ridiculous at 0.66 points per possession against PNR handlers in the playoffs, and Boston wasn’t great at 14 points at 0.74 PPP in Game 1. Just a quick rundown of some hand tracking Kemba’s shots (feel free to skip this part, summed up below): missed mid-range on switch vs. Bam, make on off-ball screen for jumper on Nunn, missed 3 vs. zone D and Iguodala, missed deep 3 vs. DJJ late in the shot clock, missed wide-open corner 3, missed mid-range off PNR with Time Lord, missed 3 off PNR with Theis, missed open 3 off Tatum getting doubled, made 3 late in shot clock vs. Crowder, blocked drive by Bam, missed 3 at 3Q buzzer, made mid-range with Theis in PNR, missed 3 iso vs. Herro, missed 3 vs. Dragic, missed iso mid-range vs. Duncan, made iso drive vs. Crowder, blocked drive by Crowder in iso, made step-back two off DHO with Theis vs. Herro, made step-back 2 vs. Herro.
OK, so basically there’s not a whole lot of his pet play of PNR, which is a bit of a positive because of how well the Heat defend that play. We saw him get a lot of looks against guys like Herro, but the defense from Crowder was huge. He was 3-of-6 via matchup data against Dragic with some of that PNR action, so just on the surface that looks to be a situational thing. It’s still a rough matchup for him, but it’s a plus to see he was able to get good shots, he shot it well later, and there was a lot of diversity in how he scored.
*The Heat took away the easy looks for Jayson Tatum, as expected. He had no fastbreak points for just the second time in the playoffs, and he basically was on par with output/volume on drives and efficiency on pullups. Jimmy Butler saw the most time on him and he was solid at 10 points on 27.6 partial possessions, and the same with Jae Crowder. Tatum didn’t have a ton of really bad looks in this game at 15 uncontested shots, but he made just six of them. As mentioned in the Stevens quotes, he trusts Tatum, and this is going to be a tough-shot series. He’ll get his opportunities here.
*The Smart plan was as expected with Smart getting nine catch-and-shoot attempts, making four of them with Smart accounting for four of the nine wide-open attempts. He saw a decent amount of Jae Crowder on him and that didn’t go great (1-of-3), but he killed the guards on shooting at 4-of-5 from deep. He should find shots again, especially as the Celtics try to open up their offense more.
*Jaylen Brown was third in transition scoring in the playoffs (Giannis, LeBron), but the Heat kept him to zero fast-break points, and they completely took away his pullup game at 0-of-2 from the field (was averaging five per in playoffs). As expected, like Smart, he was going to have to go work off ball, and he came through at 3-of-4 on catch-and-shoot treys — just one unassisted bucket, too. He was just 3-of-9 on contested shots and 3-of-5 on uncontested. He needs to be a bigger part of the game plan.
*Not too much going on with Theis. He did foul out, and he had some bad luck on boards at just eight rebounding chances (Tatum 15, Brown 13 to lead the team). The minutes should be there in a tough matchup. Robert Williams was the backup C with some Grant Williams, as expected (spot minutes of Wanamaker subbing in for Theis after he fouled out).
*Brad Wanamaker was the cheap guy to go with here with terrific play on both ends. He shockingly led the game with nine points off drives, and you’d think the Celtics would need another ball handler after Stevens talked about the stagnant offense. There could be more for LeBrad.
Heat Notes
*Jimmy Butler is really, really good. As mentioned above, Spo basically said that nothing was working because of the Boston defense, so he just let Jimmy go to work without much of a game plan. That’s wild for a coach that is very game-plan oriented. Jimmy was actually very unlucky in the dimes department at 14 potential assists for his five actual ones. Jimmy had a very high contested-shot rate at 71.4%, but that’s to be expected. The Celtics kept him off the line a bit at six times, so that could have some positive regression. He was used as a screener a bit with three screen assists, and Spo will try to mix up how Jimmy is used.
*Goran Dragic was great and he just lit up Kemba Walker, but the matchup data had him at 3-of-6 (Kemba was late on a lot of off-ball stuff to distort this). Just like in the Bucks series, he was able to get a lot of good looks at 6-of-11 on uncontested compared to 5-of-8 contested. Dragic scored eight points on his nine drives as really the only efficient driver in the game and Dragic had talked about that after the game. “Spo wants me to be aggressive, to be involved and try to make plays,” Dragic said. “I just saw a couple of openings and I took advantage of that. From there on, my confidence just grew.” He has so many ways he can beat defenses, which is exactly what a player will need in this series.
*Bam is just unfair on the defensive end (and you don’t need me to add anything), but he’s been effective on O. He had 13 potential assists and on the surface he was a bit lucky with nine of them, but the Heat had 15 assisted buckets at the rim with all 32 either coming in the paint or from deep (15). Bam actually didn’t have any screen assists (credit to the Boston defense), and he doesn’t really get big volume as a roll-man producer either. The outside-in style may change a bit to get more looks for Bam to create offense. Additionally, he’s done very well at getting to the line against the Celtics and came through again with 11 attempts.
*Tyler F’n Herro. The four-man group of Herro, Dragic, Jimmy and Bam was terrific in Game 1, sitting at a +39.4 net rating in 18 minutes. That foursome with Jae was the go-to closing lineup as per usual, too. That lineup is the best in the playoffs (min 40 minutes), and it was positive again with key minutes against great Boston lineups. As mentioned above, Herro will get his shots because of the variety in his offensive arsenal. His minutes are the safest behind Jimmy, Bam and Jae.
*As we expected, you have to be worried about Duncan Robinson. Foul trouble burned him badly in the first half (just 3:15 played in the first half), but this series is going to be really tough for him in a series involving two switch-happy defenses that have teams looking for advantageous positions on the other end. If the Heat can’t get off-ball stuff working, that really limits Miami on how to maximize Duncan and Spo talked about that. “He just has to continue to run his routes, with purpose, incredible persistence,” Spo said (very ETR-y quote, btw). Spo said Robinson could have been more persistent and that he “typically finds ways to have a better impact as a series goes on.” For what it’s worth, in both Game 2s of previous series, the Heat do try to get Duncan going early with each Game 2 resulting in his highest scoring output — Malcolm Brogdon had mentioned after Game 2 in the first series that the Heat went to him with purpose. Still, it’s tough to buy him finding minutes because of how great Herro has been.
Matchup Helps: Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic, Marcus Smart, Tyler Herro
Matchup Hurts: Duncan Robinson, Kendrick Nunn, Kemba Walker (still kind of like him, but wanted to put someone here on BOS side)
