Boston Celtics at Miami Heat
Team Totals: Celtics 102.5, Heat 101
Injury Report: Marcus Smart (Q, ankle), Robert Williams (Q, knee), Tyler Herro (Q, groin), Jimmy Butler (Q, knee), Kyle Lowry (Q, hamstring), Max Strus (fake Q, hamstring), P.J. Tucker (fake Q, knee), Gabe Vincent (fake Q, hamstring)
Celtics projected starters: Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, Robert Williams
Heat projected starters: Kyle Lowry, Max Strus, Jimmy Butler, P.J. Tucker, Bam Adebayo
Udoka quotes: Said taking care of the ball was the most important thing and they did that early on to set the tone, said they wanted Derrick White to be confident with his shot and drive into the paint to help spread the ball around, said Robert Williams had some cramping in the second half (went to the locker room), said the guys took it personally that Bam got going in Game 3.
Spoelstra quotes: Said their offense didn’t have purpose, said there are so many crazy runs and it may not show how competitive this series is, he kind of ducked a question about Jimmy’s knee and talked about his competitiveness, said they can win games a number of ways, said they lacked force and intention on offense.
Stats and Notes:
*A lot going on here in this series is more important than shot type/location, but that’s a factor here. Miami was bombing away on mid-range shots with 44.2% of their shots in Game 4 coming in the mid-range (32.9% for Boston). That’s been a pretty big trend for the Heat with 40.5% of their shots in this series coming from the mid-range. Miami was basically in the middle of the pack in that department at 31.2%, and they were below that in the first two rounds at 30.8%. Why? It has to be Boston’s defense. They’ve caused teams to shoot 39.2% of their shots in the mid-range in the playoffs after they were at a 28th-ranked 35.9% (Suns and Hornets only teams higher), and Boston’s mid-range D was the best in the NBA at 39.3%. Besides that stuff, the only noticeable edge for offenses has been Miami’s halfcourt O rating being lower (98.0 Miami, 102.8 Boston). Boston also has a slight edge for points+ per possession, and they are winning the wide-open 3-pointers battle with a 25.2-23.3 edge (tied in Game 4).
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