Miami Heat suffered to qualify for the playoffs. He entered the play-in and lost his first game against the Atlanta Hawks, so he had to play the playoffs against the Chicago Bulls to get his ticket to the postseason. This story is not from several years ago, it is from just 37 days ago. In that period, the team led by Jimmy Butler showed a phenomenal transformation. He eliminated the best team in the regular season (Milwaukee Bucks), then the Philadelphia 76ers and now they are about to sweep the Boston Celtics in the conference finals. Historic!
Those from Florida categorically beat those from Massachusetts at home by 128 to 102 and were one step away from the NBA final.
At the end of the third quarter, the difference was 30 points. The emotional blow was of such magnitude that the Celtics coach, Joe Mazzulla, decided to play the last period with substitutes who, paradoxically, played a better role than the starters.
Miami displayed solid team play and a mettle that Boston hasn’t been able to find so far in the series.
Butler scored 16 points and was, this time, a supporting actor to Gabe Vincent, who scored 29, Duncan Robinson, 22 and Caleb Martin, 18.
On the Celtics side, everything was very, very poor. Jayson Tatum closed his roster with 14 points (1 of 7 on 3-pointers) and Jaylen Brown with 12 (no hits on seven 3-point shot attempts).
The visiting franchise had 26% from the line of 3 (11 of 42) and although they dominated the rebounds with 57 against 35 for the Heat, they failed to take advantage of that capital. Those from Miami captured only one offensive rebound in the entire game and Boston 21.
So, how do you explain that those led by Erik Spoelstra have emerged victorious? They threw less and put more. The Heat had 56.3% shooting from the field (46 of 81) with 54.3% from 3-pointers (17 of 21). The Celtics, on the other hand, shot 17 more times to the hoop than their rivals, but -in addition to the poor performance from the third dimension- they sealed their game for oblivion with 39.8% shooting from the field (39 of 98). Poor shooting choices and low effectiveness: a fatal combination if you are faced with a team that knows what it is playing and does it very well.
The next game will be on Tuesday and the Heat can become the first team in history to reach the league final from the play-in. In front, Boston will try to start the path towards a historic comeback, since a team has never been able to turn a series with three games behind. There were three teams that forced a seventh game (New York Knicks 1951, Denver Nuggets 1994 and Portland Trailblazers 2003) but all lost the final game. Until now, it was an impossible mission.
2023-05-22 04:05:03
#Heats #blowout #Game #put #Celtics #ropes
