Boston Celtics v Miami Heat (Heat lead 3-1)
The Miami Heat needed one more win to be in the NBA Finals, but the Celtics weren’t ready to get knocked out of the bubble just yet. The Celtics have only faced elimination one other time in so far, and they knocked out the defending champs.
The Heat came out and shut down the Celtics immediately. Moving through the first half, they kept their intensity but slowed down their defense, allowing the Celtics to begin cutting into their lead slightly. The Heat went into the half leading 58-51.
The Celtics came out from the half a totally different team. They dominated the third quarter, outscoring the Heat by 16. The Heat could not overcome the change in pace, and the Celtics cruised to a 121-108 victory.
The Heat played a great first half but had no answer for the Celtics offense in the second half. If the Heat can’t recover from this blown game, the Celtics will take game six easily. The Celtics completely shut down rookie G Tyler Herro (14PTS) after scoring a playoff career-high in game four. The Celtics perimeter defense was amazing in this game. They held the Heat to under 20%, 7-36 3PT field goals, tonight.
The Celtics defense was the biggest reason for their huge turnaround in the second half of this game. They finally got a good performance from one of their starters, C Daniel Theis. This was the first game where any center for the Celtics scored double-digit points and double-digit rebounds. Theis (15PTS 13REB 1AST 3BLK 35MIN) showed up for the Celtics when they needed it most. If Theis can hang with the Heats’ big man, Bam Adebayo, they have a great chance to get this series to go seven games.
The Celtics showed great fight to stay alive and got contributions from players they needed in past games. It’s on to game six, uncharted territory for the Heat.