There was a script, for this second game of the Eastern final, with which almost everyone counted. Almost everyone… except Miami Heat. Boston Celtics, by now everyone knows, is a team with a terrible bad student syndrome. Unable too many times to make things easy, to do what he has to do when it seems simpler. And perfectly used to, right after, showing his best face when he looks worse. It’s come to a point already with three coaches (Brad Stevens-Ime Udoka-Joe Mazzulla), in which it is better to assume that it is the nature of this team. The nature of the obvious referents of him, the jays (Tatum and Brown) and Marcus Smart. A project that will not learn. He will not stop making his fans despair on nights when everything should go downhill or amaze them when their backs are against the wall. Which is why we thought after his awful third quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Finals against the Heat, the miracle in motion of the Heatplayed long knives night for the visitor.
But No. As in the story of the lying shepherd boy, when they really wanted to neither the Celtics could. Because the wolf, and the simile is perfect in this case, wears combat boots: Erik Spoelstra, Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, that batch of outsiders turned into a Spartan army of secondary… The Celtics, by talent and habits (bad the first good the second, it was supposed), they seemed to have the final of the East still in hand despite the initial 0-1. Also by statistics: the last 16 playoff games played with that 0-1 had ended in victory for the local team. But Miami Heat won, again, at the Garden (105-111). He returned all the blows, some really hard, that his rival threw. And he returns to Florida with an absolutely improbable 0-2 that, in conference finals, has been worth an unblemished 15-0 in series wins. Nobody has done, in short, what the Celtics have to do now.
Lakers (who are at least playing now, starting tonight, at home) and Celtics (who are theoretically the best team in their series: in theory) compare 0-2 against. They have played in the Conference (or Division at the time) finals 27 times at the same time, and only in 1955 did they see themselves in such a situation. And they both lost. Now, that would be the logical outcome: the Lakers play against a superior rival, the Celtics have to win four games out of five, and at least two at home, against a rival that is on the way to breaking history. Who entered the playoffs as eighth, after suffering a play in that he overcame by a miracle and after a very weak, soulless season, which seemed to be in transition. But no: the Heat they were there. Capable of causing a historic earthquake with the demolition of the Bucks in the first round and now putting the other great favorite of the season on the ropes, some Celtics that lean into a terrifying abyss. If they lose this series, they will pass things. And although there are rivals with more roof and more talent, there is none that is such a bad enemy for a situation like this, to risk life or death in a dead end. In a street fight.
Spoelstra and Butler decide what is played
Mazzulla is losing his slate duel with Spoelstra in a resounding way, but that was something the Celtics could count on a priori without it having to mean a turnaround in a tie that, however, is now upside down. Jimmy Butler is the best player, certainly the most decisive, on the track, and that is a big problem in green key. Jayson Tatum finished this time with 34 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists. But he didn’t score in the last quarter (0/3 shooting, 2 turnovers) and in the last two quarters so far in the series he hasn’t scored a basket but he has piled up 5 turnovers. Jimmy Butler closed at 27+8+6 with 3 steals, no triples and hardly any free throws. drop of sweat drop of sweat, basket worked to basket worked. And with 9 points in the last 6 minutes, when they went from 96-87 to a final run of 9-24. That is to say, Butler scored in that final stretch the same as an opponent again unable to solve Spoelstra’s lethal puzzles.
The Celtics stayed in a 2/10 with 3 losses in that sprint truncated, in which the Heat returned to find solutions, roads. Decisive baskets. This time from a dimly lit Vincent until then. Before Strus, first, and Duncan Robinson (15 points) and a decisive Caleb Martin (25) later. And always from Butler. It didn’t even take Lowry and Love, the illustriousThey did a great deal. It was enough with the resolution of an armored block, his ability to win and the iron couple formed by Butler, the suicidal antihero, and a Bam Adebayo at a gigantic level: rebounds, points, concrete blocks and 22+17+9 for him, right now, the best interior of the series by far.
Spoelstra once again used zones that riled up some Celtics again entangled in turnovers (15). He rotated better than Mazzulla and led a team that has literally forgotten what fear is. That he has won six of the eight games he has been in, in these playoffs, losing by more than 10. And He resists everything, this time also a 21-2 run with which the Celtics tightened the bolts in the first half (from 14-22 to 35-24). The maximum was +12, which was repeated in the last quarter (89-77) of a game that the locals had to win and perfectly they could win. But they didn’t know how to play when he boiled.
Jaylen Brown (16 points, 7/23 shooting) only 3 assists for 2 turnovers was far from his level. Smart, the team’s best in many stretches of the first game, had a horrible night. Al Horford suffered a lot and while Rob Williams was better, it only served to make his coach confuse his best rotation options in the fourth quarter. Against these Heat, you have to play perfect for 48 minutes. not worth catch up at times In bursts, no matter how bright they are. They are always behind, they always appear in the rear-view mirror no matter how much you accelerate. And if you let your guard down for a second, they’re all over you with their maniacal grin. And that’s the last thing you see before going to the locker room, battered: Jimmy Butler’s grin.
The tie is not over. The Celtics were a priori very favorites and they will get fully into the fight if they win tomorrow, in the series opener in Florida. But his bad habits have played a trick on them because the rival in front of them does not forgive (the-Heat-are-not-the-Sixers). He does not believe in favoritism or statistics or field advantages. play, bite, win. beyond the normal seasontemplates and expectations, The Miami Heat is a giant team right now, a bulldozer that survives any collision and it feeds on all the weaknesses of its rival, however small and as soon as they appear. A vampire armed to the teeth. So now, and even more so with 0-2 on the way home, he is the great favorite to return to the NBA Finals three years later. It’s up to the Boston Celtics to prove that isn’t the case…or go on vacation and face a devastating summer. Tomorrow (02:30, Spanish time), giant game in Miami. Gigantic.
