BOSTON — From a series sweep to a serious series, the Boston Celtics are changing the Eastern Conference finals.
They’re still in a big hole, but they easily won Thursday, 110-97, in Game 5 at the Miami Heat, with four of their starters scoring at least 20 points, and are now two wins from being first team in NBA History to win a series after trailing, 3-0.
Game 6 is 8:30 pm Saturday in Miami. The Celtics have won the last two games by a combined 30 points. Boston never trailed Thursday and led by as many as 24 – a 15-point game after the first quarter.
“It just says our backs are against the wall and we’re sticking together and we’re competing at a high level to give ourselves a chance,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said.
The Celtics’ backcourt of Derrick White and Marcus Smart easily had their best games of the series. They took advantage of the Heat’s missing starting guard Gabe Vincent (sprained left ankle) and victimized Max Strus and Vincent’s replacement, Kyle Lowry.
White, who opened the conference finals as a reserve, scored 24 points on six 3s, with two steals. Smart added 23 points (four 3s) and five steals.
“He just plays defensive versatility and he does a great job paying attention to detail in personnel attitudes,” Mazzulla said of White. And of Smart, he said: “He is just an emotional key for us. When he’s locked in and playing on both sides of the ball at a different pace, it gives us our identity and our life.
Jayson Tatum nearly had a triple double (21 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds and Jaylen Brown added 21 points.) Tatum got Boston up 12 in the first, including a dunk with 3:18 left to take the lead for the second time by Miami. of the game. The Celtics were up by 15 by then and the closest the game would get was 11 points, in the second quarter.
Bam Adebayo (16 points, eight rebounds) or Jimmy Butler (14 points) did not play in the fourth quarter of this blowout. Miami turned to Haywood Highsmith for the first time in this series and he led off the bench with 15 points, as did Caleb Martin (14 points) and Duncan Robinson (18 points).
Lowry and Strus gave the Heat little (combining eight points on 3-of-10 shooting). Miami again struggled with turnovers (16 to the Celtics’ 27 points) and gave up 17 points for the second time. The Celtics, continuing another recent trend, were once again hot from 3-point range.
“Their activity level has increased in the last two games, and that’s what you should expect in a competitive playoff series,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Also we play to the crowd quite a bit. That there could be some good things from that, if we read the game, read the coverages and make the appropriate plays.
“But you have to give them credit for the activity,” Spoelstra continued. “They crowded us in the paint a few times with quick hands, strip-downs, things of that nature. We have to fight for that. That’s two games in a row. We have to be aggressive and then make the appropriate plays with the appropriate spacing.”
Just one more win would send this series back to Boston for an improbable Game 7 on Monday, with a ton of history on the line as well as a spot in the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets.
As you know, none of the 150 teams that have fallen behind 3-0 in a series have come back to win. Only three teams had forced a Game 7. The Celtics were soon close to being swept, with fair questions being asked about Mazzulla’s future in Boston, and the future of the roster.
“Yeah, obviously Game 3 was tough, but I mean, all year long we’ve been connected in the locker room, side by side, and I’m confident we’ll come back and just compete,” White said. . “We’ve been doing that the last two games.”
On the other side, the Heat are trying to become the second No. 8 seed to reach the finals and the first since 1999. They are 0-for-2 in their first two cracks here, and don’t want to see what 0-3 feels like.
“The last two games it’s not who we are,” Butler said. “It just happened that way. We stopped playing defense in the half because we weren’t making the shots we wanted to make. But that can be easily corrected. You just have to go out and play harder from the jump. As I always say, it will be all smiles and we will keep it very, very, very consistent, knowing that we will win the next game.
The Celtics look like them
It took the Celtics until halftime of Game 4 to figure things out, but they put together their wall-to-wall masterpiece in Game 5 to make the possibility of an 0-3 comeback startlingly real. .
Boston’s contested shooting has been unsustainable, but their attention to detail and intensity in every aspect of their identity and technique on both ends is back in full force. — Weiss
Peak Boston basketball
Tatum finally solved Miami’s defense and looked comfortable doubling and finding shooters. The team moves the ball with speed and decisiveness, and the defensive pressure is just right without overextending themselves. The individual defense in Butler and Adebayo has been incredible, and Boston has nailed its transition space from their countless deflections.
This is the peak of Celtics basketball, and it looks like they can pull off the greatest comeback ever if they just keep this focus. — Weiss
The Celtics play with intensity
The Celtics had the intensity from the start. On the first play, Smart knocked the ball away from Adebayo and dove down the court to clear possession. From there, Boston forced 15 more turnovers, including five by Adebayo.
Boston was actually outscored after opening the game on a 20-5 run but held a comfortable margin the rest of the way. Tatum didn’t have a big scoring game but he controlled everything with his offensive reads. — king
Why did the Heat struggle?
The Celtics aren’t giving Adebayo anything to do on offense, which is one of the ways this series has changed. After attempting just seven shots with four turnovers in Game 4, Adebayo had six turnovers on Thursday. Boston falls on him and strips the ball from him.
Adebayo doesn’t move quickly or find an open teammate when the double team arrives; in part because the Heat don’t move much without the ball. On a night without Vincent, and in a season where Miami has often used Adebayo to facilitate the offense, not being able to get him going or find something to counter Boston’s changing defense is a recipe for disaster occurred. — Vardon
Required reading
(Photo: Winslow Townson / USA Today)
