NBA Matchups: May 17

Conference Finals! Drew Dinkmeyer and I went through the matchups in the pod together, and I’ll have 3 Ball out! Be sure to check those out, too!

Boston Celtics at Miami Heat

Team totals: Celtics 101.3, Heat 102.8

Injury report: Marcus Smart (Q, foot), Kyle Lowry (O, hamstring), Caleb Martin (fake Q, ankle), Max Strus (fake Q, hamstring), P.J. Tucker (fake Q, calf), Gabe Vincent (fake Q, hamstring)

Celtics projected starters: Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Grant Williams,

Heat projected starters: Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Jimmy Butler, P.J. Tucker, Bam Adebayo

Season offensive ranks: Celtics 10th, Heat 11th (Celtics 8th in halfcourt, Heat 11th)

Season defensive ranks: Celtics 1st, Heat 4th (Celtics 1st in halfcourt, Heat 5th)

Postseason offensive ranks: Celtics 9th, Heat 4th (Celtics 8th in halfcourt, Heat 13th)

Postseason defensive ranks: Celtics 3rd, Heat 2nd (Celtics 1st in halfcourt, Heat 2nd)

Season series: 2-1 Celtics

Noteworthy missed games: Robert Williams (1 missed game), Jimmy Butler (1), P.J. Tucker (1), Kyle Lowry (1), Max Strus (1)

Udoka quotes: Said they tweaked the rotation in the second quarter to go Brown and Tatum (said it was an in-game adjustment), said the Bucks were disrespecting Grant Williams and they told him to fire away, said the Bucks were overhelping on Tatum and they were finally able to break it open offensively, said Giannis wasn’t letting them off the hook with his aggressive style on offense, said their first-quarter defense wasn’t great, said they were only going to use Time Lord for a spot possession, said they were fine with Theis and Al as their bigs without Time Lord, said he really believed his team would show up Games 6-7 because defense travels on the road, said role players can flip series all the time and it helps they have so many guys capable of stepping up, said Miami’s zone was a problem early in the season series but now they have multiple sets to run against it, said they were looking at a lot of film on the zone, said Williams will be “available like he was last night,” said they do want to be a little bit cautious with Lord and “he’s looking a little better every day,” said there’s no limit on Lord, said Marcus Smart “took a pretty bad fall” and he’s “pretty tender and sore right now” and he’ll get around-the-clock treatment, said they were not playing their best basketball early in the Milwaukee series.