Celtics’ chances against the Miami Heat

The Miami Heat turned an eight-point halftime deficit into an 11-point Game 1 victory over the Boston Celtics to take an early lead in the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals, and look to take a two-game lead Thursday at home in Game 2.

The lessons from Game 1 are simple: if the Celtics remain shorthanded, Jimmy Butler and the top-seeded Heat in the East are the series favorites (which wasn’t the case three days ago according to bookmakers in Las Vegas). With Al Horford and Marcus Smart, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, absent from Boston’s rotation, Miami has the best defense in this series, and Boston’s weakened and fatigued rotation could be its fatal flaw.

At the start of Game 1, things looked good for Boston, but the game took a drastic turn in the third quarter. In the first half it looked like Jayson Tatum and Robert Williams could get any shot they wanted, but when the final buzzer sounded, Bam Adebayo and the Miami defense flipped the script and restored the Heat’s defensive pride.

If there’s one stat that captures how drastically the tide turned in Game 1, it’s this: Boston scored 42 points in the paint in the first half and only six after halftime. That 36-point slump is tied for the most in any NBA game, regular season or playoffs, in the last 25 seasons. After hitting 21 of 28 shots in the paint in the first half, the Celtics hit just 3 of 12 shots in the second.

What happened? Miami’s elite defense woke up, Boston’s fatigue from its grueling seven-game series over Milwaukee was felt, and the Celtics simply couldn’t match the Heat’s intensity down the stretch. By the end of the game, the Heat had blocked 12 shots, tying their franchise playoff record and reminding us all that the Adebayo-Butler industrial complex is capable of reducing any NBA offense to a disaster.

On the superstar front, Game 1 was defined by Butler outplaying Tatum when it mattered most. With both starting groups in play at the start of the third quarter, Butler and Miami outscored Boston 23-2 and reached a level of intensity and competition on both ends of the court that Tatum and his teammates simply could not match.

Butler stole the ball from Tatum three times in Game 1, held him to 2-of-6 shooting as his primary defender, and his exquisite two-way play sparked the ferocious third-quarter run that turned Boston’s modest halftime lead into a statement Heat victory. If Butler can win this matchup consistently in this series, that bodes well for Miami going forward, especially if the Celtics are shorthanded.

Tatum had 21 points in the first half, including 16 in the paint. But, in the second half, he shot just 1-of-7 and had no points in the paint. He also had six turnovers in the second half as Butler stole the show, once again saving his best work for the biggest moments on the league’s biggest stages.

Playoff Butler is a different player. Consider these two stats:

• During the regular season, Butler had no 40-point games. But during the 2022 playoffs, he already has three in 11 games, including Game 1 of this series.
• Butler has a plus-13.0 per game this postseason. That’s the most by any player in this year’s playoffs and the fifth-highest in a single postseason in the last 25 years (minimum five games).

In the 11-point Game 1 win, Miami outscored Boston by 25 points in Butler’s 41 minutes; Boston outscored Miami by 14 in the seven minutes Butler rested.

Butler is the most important player in this series as it progresses. If he can do what he did in Game 1, the Heat will win the series. If the Celtics can slow him down like they did Kevin Durant in the first round, they can win the contest.

Boston couldn’t keep Butler away from the rim and sent him to the line 18 times. That can’t continue if the Celtics want to win. But without Horford and Smart, it’s fair to wonder if it’s possible to slow Butler down at this point.

The Celtics went into the locker room at halftime in good shape, but when they returned after the game, the good vibes were gone and a cruel reality set in: their depleted roster had a key weakness, the Heat found it down the stretch, and exploited it again and again.

With Smart out, Erik Spoelstra’s pick-and-roll offense relentlessly pursued, attacked and exposed Payton Pritchard’s inability to defend the red-hot Butler in the fourth quarter. Normally, Pritchard wouldn’t be on the court at the critical moment, but with Smart out, he was and became a juicy target for Butler.

Pritchard was the protective defender for 13 on-ball screens in the final quarter (11 of which were led by Butler with the ball), the most by any Celtics player in a quarter this postseason. According to Second Spectrum’s tracking, the Celtics allowed 2.0 points per straight pick on these plays, which is ridiculously high efficiency for any half-court action, and also proof that Smart’s return is vital for Boston moving forward in this series.

Coach Ime Udoka has to find better defensive options against Butler and find ways to get other members of the Heat offense to make plays in his place.

The Celtics wouldn’t be in the East Finals without Smart and Horford, so it’s unreasonable to expect them to win this series without them. Injuries are a fact of life in the postseason, but they’re also often the cause of defeat. Those stats from Pritchard prove it.

Smart and Horford lead Boston’s top-ranked defense, and while Butler’s numbers deserve respect no matter what, it’s impossible not to wonder how they’d look against a fully stocked Celts defense.

Could Butler have played Smart in the second half the same way he played Pritchard? Of course not, but the point remains: Miami is likely to win this series if Boston can’t slow down Butler, and the Celtics can’t do that with their reserves.

If there are two stats to watch over the next few games, it’s a simple pair of numbers: how many minutes can Smart and Horford play? The answer could not only determine Butler’s effectiveness in this series, but also who will hoist the NBA’s first Bob Cousy Eastern Conference Championship Trophy next week.