PLAYOFFS 2023 - EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS GAME #1 - POST GAME MIAMI HEAT - HOME

It’s the whole culture there that starts with Riley. He knows exactly what he’s doing. We should have had a 20 point lead in first half if not for Kyle Lowry, who in short bursts can still show why he’s a former all star and championship point. Jaylen was pissing me off with lackluster turnovers, obviously I love him, but that cost us a bigger lead in the 2nd quarter. The 4 days off really helped them, Heat looked fresh and are so deliberate in their approach on the floor. They remind me of the methodical Spurs, they really know how to play.

Smart had 10 assists in first half, then finished with 11. He was putting on a clinic, like I said we should have been up 20, if not for our usual dumb turnovers and then Spurs made adjustments and took it away. Pritchard played, but could we not put him on switches in the post with Jimmy Butler? No more easy baskets in 2nd half. Why isn’t Grant Williams playing? He can defend multiple positions and spread the floor. Spolstra has Heat getting production out of every player with key injuries to Hero and Olidipo. No name players are getting a shot and responding, and were experimenting and freezing out contributors? I understand we need Al’s defense, but his shot has been off for awhile. Grant playing 12-15 minutes next to RWill to give Al a little spark or breather is now out of the question?

Sixers had no pg behind Harden, and Harden’s bad play really helped us. Heat don’t rely on their pg in that way, completely different system and have Lowry off the bench. We have to be better against Heat, they will not beat themselves. They can adjust their defense on the fly and J’s have to not dribble into their traps and double teams. Stop losing the ball guys!!!

NBA teams are given 7 timeouts per half plus a 20-second timeout.  They are allowed a maximum of 4 full timeouts in the 4th quarter.  That means that if you want to use all your timeouts you have to use at least 3 of them in the 3rd quarter.  Joe didn't call our first timeout until there was only 6:28 left in the 3rd and the Heat had gone on a 21-12 run and the score was tied at 78.  But here's the thing:  Each period must have two mandatory timeouts. If neither team has taken a timeout before 6:59 of the period, the Official Scorer will take a mandatory timeout at the next dead ball and charge it to the home team.  The Celtic timeout that was taken at 6:28 was a league mandated timeout because it was the first dead ball, caused by a Jaylen Brown foul, in the quarter by either team with less than 6:59 on the clock.  There was, of course, no reason why Spo would call a time out, his team was on a substantial run that eliminated our 9 point half time lead in less than half a quarter.  So this timeout at 6:28 wasn't called by Joe to stop the run, it was called by the Official Scorer.  Joe couldn't figure out that he should call a timeout to settle his team down.  This was, by the way, the last Celtic timeout in the 3rd quarter.  We gave up 46 points in that quarter and Joe didn't call a single timeout himself.  Our rookie head coach needed the NBA to call a timeout for him.  In the 4th quarter, starting off down 12 (103-91), Joe called 2 timeouts, one with 3:19 left and the score 114-109; and the second with 27.1 seconds left and we're down 8 @ 122-114.  The first timeout of the 4th makes sense.  We were down only 5 points and there was still time to set your defense, call some good plays and claw our way back.  The final timeout was valueless. Down 3 possessions with :27 left the game at that point was already over.  In 24 minutes of play Joe called 2 timeouts, both in the 4th quarter, and had the NBA do his job for him in the 3rd.  That's 3 timeouts used by/charged to the Celtics in the 2nd half out of 7+ available.  Spo conducted a coaching master class in how to control momentum and flow, and our head coach got schooled.  Someone tell me I'm wrong.

After Game 7 against the Sixers Joe said he was going home, having a glass of wine and watching some film of Miami.  Try it again Joe but this time leave out the wine, ok?

Miami with 6 players in double digit scoring.  We had 6 too.  My point is that the Miami Heat isn't the 2-headed Atlanta Hawks or the 3-headed Philadelphia Sixers (giving Tyrese Maxey some credit here).  Miami started off with Bam playing point center.   We played like we never thought of that.  Bam was getting all the way to the frito line, and closer, before our defender picked him up and a lot of the time it was one of the Js.  I don't know where RWill and Al were, but they weren't stopping Bam early.

We shot 52% for the game, so our offense was fine.  They shot 54% overall and almost 52% from 3.  That's lack of perimeter defense by us.  They had 6 more 3pt fgm than us, that's 18 points right there, and a lot of them were Heat players just walking into them because our defenders were on their heels in the paint.

The Js with 10 of our 15 turnovers, Jaylen with 6.  Jaylen has said he wants to have the ball more, to be the creator more.  Not with handles like that.  Jaylen has improved a part of his game every off-season.  We all know which part he needs to work on this offseason.  Shooting-wise the Js were a combined 19-39, so that was fine, BUT Tatum took ZERO fgas in the 4th quarter and turned the ball over 3 times.  Brown was 3-7 in the 4th with 2 turnovers.  Our All-Stars, our All-NBA players, were a combined 3-7 for 12 points, 0-4 from 3, 2 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 turnovers in the 4th quarter.  We're not going to win many games when both of them stink up the final frame like that.  7 fgas, combined?!

Miami with 12 steals vs 6 for us.  Steals are just live turnovers and result in a higher % of conversions into points.  Jimmy freaking Butler had 6.  His energy level was off the charts.

This guy's attitude is a bit tiring (and I find his voice grating) but it is a film about defensive lapses and not about defensive superlatives.  This is painful to watch but he makes some good points.  It's educational.  If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.




Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 40 minutes ago
Jimmy Butler on Marcus Smart after Game 1: "I think they will watch film and see that they probably have to utilize him more. I would.”

Smart with 13 points on 3-7, 11 assists and only 2 turnovers.  2 steals.  The problem is that Marcus had 10 assists in the first half and only 1 in the second.  10 points in the 2nd half, so he wasn't just standing around, but only 1 assist.  In fact, we only had 7 assists in the entire 2nd half.

Tale of the 3rd quarter:  We shot 9-20 (45%, not bad, but not enough fgas) and 3-9 from 3 in the 3rd quarter.  The Heat were 17-26 (65%) and 6-9 (67%) in the 3rd.  Six more fgas and double our 3pt fg% on the same number of 3pt fgas.  Our 2pt fg% was 6-11, not bad.  Their 2pt fg% was 11-17 (64.7%).  Maybe you can hope their 3pt shooting cools off in the 4th and yours improves (it didn't, we shot 2-8 from 3 in the 4th), but how can you not call a timeout when the Heat are absolutely cooking you from 2?

4 of Miami's 12 steals came in the 4th.  Remember, those live turnovers known as steals are in addition to the 3 official turnovers in the 4th.  That's 7 4th quarter changes of possession in their favor that have nothing to do with missed fgas.  For our part we had 1 steal and they had 2 turnovers.  So, net, they had 4 more possessions in the critical 4th quarter off of our lack of focus and execution as well as their higher defensive energy.  


I don't understand the Payton substitutions over Grant either, but if I have a beef with Pritchard's game it was that he didn't shoot enough.  I thought his defense was good, really good energy and effort on Butler and Lowry, but he only took 2 fgas in 12 minutes.  That still doesn't explain the Grant Coaches-DNP.  Joe had a couple of "wtf Joe?!!!" moments.

Okay, okay, time to settle down a bit.  We've been here before.  We lost game 1 against the Sixers.  If "you are your record" then the Sixers are a better team than the Heat, and we beat Philly in 7 despite losing game 1.  Our regular season away record is 25-16 (.609) and Miami's was 17-24 (.415).  So they won one on the road.  If the past is prologue I am confident we can win home court back in South Beach.

I just hope this team doesn't give me a coronary before then.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401547671


Bob


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dboss wrote:A couple of things popped out.

It seemed like Marcus was not running our offense in the 2nd half.  He was great in the first half.  I like him running our offense more than any other player on the team.  

JT did not get enough looks in the 2nd half and when they finally got him the ball late, he fumbled away his opportunities. The 10 combined TOV by our All  NBAers was horrible.

I am afraid that CJ is still allergic to calling timeouts to change the momentum of a game and to call specific plays for guys.  

While it was nice to see PP get some run he is too small to switch and Butler took advantage of him. Maybe if you feel the need to play PP, you change up the defense and play a zone.

The offense was not great but we still managed to score 116 points.  Therefore, the 7 point deficit can be traced to piss poor defense which was characterized by not closing out to shooters on the perimeter.

It is what it is.  A loss on Friday by the Celtics would pretty much turn this voyage into a shipwreck.

Come on man!! When I see a successful basket off a ATO it will be the first time!!

Jaylen Brown: Celtics Played Game 1 Like Regular Season Game





Bob
MY NOTE: No excuses for this. No excuse for not recognizing the playoffs are different, no excuse for not being locked and energized. It's one thing to miss your shots, shots that you should feel comfortable taking, it's a whole other thing to play like it's a regular season game. That's the downside of the Brad Stevens "steady as she goes" mentality. In the playoffs every game should be played like we're a pack of meth-crazed wolverines with a terrible attitude.


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Joe Mazzulla:  "The Celtics lost their sense of urgency."

And you did what to remind them of that, Joe? He doesn't realize he just indicted himself.





Bob


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Ktron I like the Twilight Zone reference. Every team goes through ups and downs, but the Celtics bring it to another maddening level. I have no explanation how their variance from game to game or quarter to quarter is so high???

We can win the muck up games like we did against the Sixers, we can’t do that against this team. This team is so well coached, you can marvel at so many things they do right and imagine if we could ever be you know a cohesive disciplined unit that sticks to the same system all the time. Our defense won game 6 vs Philly, until Tatum got hot. RWill was the right call. Tatum was in another world in game 7, other than that I didn’t see any great strategy that Joe did that improved the team. Did you see anything other than Rob making huge impact until Tatum got hot and Tatum wearing his Superman cape game 7 that Joe did?

We had one hellacious bad 3rd quarter that blew the game, but I thought we did alot of careless things before that, that let a 13 point lead evaporate to 7 before halftime. That rush by them continued in the 3rd and other than being mad, Joe came up with nothing to stop the onslaught. They were getting wide open looks from 3, perimeter defense was recently one of our strengths. Bob correctly pointed out no one was impeding Bam bringing the ball all the way up the court right into the paint. I’d say we are extremely slow on in game adjustments. Guys Friday nights game is a must win, we lose that game I don’t see how this talented inconsistent bunch of underachievers can come back from that. We have 2 nuclear players, but there is a mental fortitude/discipline I’m consistently not seeing enough of from our 2 best players. I see that all the time from Playoff Jimmy….

NY Celt

I actually remember Brad being very good on designing plays ATO for a few seasons. The commentators would give him his props on the design and execution of the play and more often than not, it worked according to my eye test.