In the fourth quarter of the game on Wednesday the 5th, this is what the Heat had left in the tank:
And here’s what the Celtics had left:
There’s more to it than that, of course, but if you look for the CliffsNotes version of how a one-point nail biter became a 23-point Boston advantage in over six minutes between the 2 mark: 44 in the third quarter and the 8:21 mark in the fourth, there are worse places to start. On the one hand, Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry, make their way in 3-point attempts very open and did not even touch the edge. On the other: Jayson Tatum walks past her husband before moving to the corner to score a 3, and Jaylen Brown enters the lane before ending up with a tomahawk jam.
After 19 quarters of a physically demanding Eastern Conference final, the Boston players still had some juice in their legs. Miami didn’t. And with the chance to tie in an NBA Finals victory, that difference made all the difference in the world:
Brown and Tatum combined for 20 points as they made a perfect 8 of 8 on the field during that six-minute period, causing a 24-2 streak that knocked down a Heat team with no offensive responses and sent Boston to a 93-80 wins and a 3-2 lead in the series to the best of seven. The Celtics can close out their ticket to the franchise’s first appearance in the Finals since 2010 in Friday’s game 6 at TD Garden. The Heat, on the other hand, will have to recover from consecutive discouraging casualties in order to stay in the fight.
Miami has done so once this postseason, responding to a couple of losses against Philadelphia in Round 2 with two excellent performances to eliminate the 76ers on their home court. This time, however, it will be much more difficult. Scoring against this Celtics defense, the NBA’s most stained midfield unit both during the regular season and during the playoffs; a group that has size, strength, speed and changeability in each position, is a miserable task in optimal conditions. And the state of the Miami offensive is far from optimal right now.
Butler, on the shortlist of the best players of the postseason in two rounds and a dominant force in the first game against Boston, has looked like a shell of his own in attack since injuring his right knee in the third game. dribbling and lifting to his jumper, and he has only scored 7 of 32 (21.9 percent) for 19 points in the last two games, producing only four free throws and five assists in 68 minutes of ground time. . Lowry, imported in an exchange and signing and delivered a three-year, $ 85 million contract to be the constant veteran hand at times like these, has dealt with a persistent hamstring problem since the first round against Atlanta; he made it 1 of 12 with two assists and five losses in games 4 and 5 against Boston, scoring just three points in 46 minutes. Max Strus, the main long-distance option in the starting line-up, has also had hamstring problems and has missed 16 field goal attempts in the last two games. And Tyler Herro, the sixth man of the year and Miami’s most credible locksmith coach, Erik Spoelstra, has to deploy against the elite midfield defenders, losing games 4 and 5 with a stretch to the groin.
The Heat persistently refuse to attribute their offensive struggles to injuries, without accepting excuses for scoring 80.6 points for every 100 possessions outside of junk time during the last two games; as a benchmark, the worst offense in the NBA during the regular season averaged 104.7 points per 100. At some point, however, if the only perimeter players you have can beat an opposing dribble, enter the paint, and create an open appearance are Victor Oladipo (who was 1 of 7 with four losses in game 5 after his big game 4) and Gabe Vincent (who was the most effective player in Miami for long stretches of Wednesday), then don’t. enough to beat such a good Celtics defense and something that looks like full strength, with Marcus Smart (ankle) and Robert Williams III (knee) both in the lineup. You have to do something different. You have to tilt the math. And Spoelstra had the Heat ready to try in the first half of Game 5.
Spoelstra scored actions designed to move Williams, an absolute threat from a paint protector when he is healthy in this series, move away from the basket to create driving lanes and scoring occasions in which Time Lord could not have impact. He told Miami players to step up their offense in the offensive cup, especially if Williams had been taken out of the paint, and to prioritize these additional possessions as a vital source of cubes against this Boston D. The result: a 9-point offensive. -2. bounce advantage in the first half and 16-2 advantage in second chance points.
Spo begged the Heat not only to settle for the first disputed appearance they stumbled upon, but to redouble their efforts to generate the kind of attempts they enjoyed throughout the season. At this point, it was obvious that the players of Dewayne Dedmon lowered the tempo and became more defensively oriented. The idea was to spread the Celtics and make high-percentage looks easier. Indeed, after making just five 3-corner kicks and 13 touchdowns in Game 4, Miami attempted seven 3-corner and 16-yard touchdowns in the first half of Game 5.
The Heat also emphasized the importance of forcing Celtics ball handlers into the kind of live ball errors that can lead to transition opportunities. After creating just nine losses in Game 4, Miami caused 10 in the first two quarters of Game 5, four of which belonged to Brown. All in all, and the Heat were winning the possession game — more offensive rebounds, fewer losses, many more field goal attempts — which allowed them to stay even though they were only 18 of 48 since from the ground and 4 of 21. from 3 to two quarters.
It wasn’t a pretty goal, but Spoelstra and his staff had managed to help a broken squad with duct tape and chewing gum get a half-time lead by reducing Boston’s attack to just 37 points with 38.2 percent shots. The Celtics’ offensive struggles, combined with Tatum often rubbing his right shoulder, combined with the pressure of playing a swing game on the road, combined with Boston’s fear of a trip to the final of the fourth conference in six seasons that don’t go away … well, maybe yes. It would make the C’s blink and sink in the second half.
Or, you know, maybe not.
“We kept calm. We still relied on our defense, we stayed solid there and we knew that if we had our offensive game, taking care of the ball, getting shots, we would be in good shape,” said Celtics coach Ime Udoka to reporters after the match. “… We knew we were keeping a high enough level that if we just turned the corner offensively, we would be in good shape. That’s the message: we’re not playing the best we can, [it’s still a] tight match, and if we only have a decent half and above average, we will be in good shape ”.
The Celtics coughed just five losses the rest of the way, with Brown in particular making sharper decisions with the ball. He used quick units and quick decision-making to score 19 of his 25 points, the most of his game, in the second half. (Asked to evaluate the difference between Brown’s first half and his second, Udoka simply replied, “He didn’t turn it around.”) By not giving the ball away, Boston forced Miami to try to break the ball. their joint defense, a process done. harder for Udoka benching Payton Pritchard, his sublime solo defender, and giving Smart and Derrick White more minutes (which has been fantastic since he returned after missing Game 3 due to the birth of his son). Udoka also shuffled Boston’s work to Miami’s front-runners.
He moved Smart out of Butler, putting Al Horford and Grant Williams in the Heat star. “Butler didn’t want to score,” Udoka said after the game. “He was more of a screener, making plays in his pocket. It was sliding behind some of our switches. We wanted to keep him big, play him like a big one. ” Time Lord in Bam Adebayo, whose tendencies towards a more passive game when facing longer defenders, look: his fights against Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo when Miami was swept by the Bucks last postseason, have manifested in major production drops when Williams rounds out.
And with no one in Miami seemingly able to throw a marble into the ocean lately, the Heat went just 7 of 45 from the 3-point range in Game 5 and have dropped to 29.2 percent as a team for in the series. Udoka has been encouraged to let his grains sit with the fall cover, cover the paint, and dare the Heat to make the C’s pay for it. They could not:
When those long-range attempts were lost, Boston was ready for that. The Celtics looked for every opportunity to catch a defensive rebound and beat the heat in the transition. Miami recovered 10 of its failures in the second half, but only scored eight points; Boston, meanwhile, scored nine quick break points, largely using the Heat’s aggression against them. “When we have stops to go out and run, we’re kind of a lethal team on both ends,” Udoka said.
Heat can also be when everything clicks. After Wednesday’s game, Spoelstra repeatedly expressed his confidence in the kind of things Miami could generate before the end of the third quarter, saying he felt the Heat looked more like the type of attack they have been. during the season “if you remove the excitement of the misses.”
Then he looked down the scoreboard, and not even he could get the excitement out of the failures.
“Okay, yes, it’s not a big 3 points …