Post Game - Celtics vs. Miami Heat - Sunday, April 21, 2024 - Game 1 Eastern Quarterfinals (W 1-0)

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401654760

Hi,
Total, complete domination. I hope the Celtics will continue in the same manner.
It seemed MIA didn't have capacity to do anything.
I didn't like, thou, the second half of the 4th quarter. They decided that the game is done and took the foot off the gas. Hopefully, it's a good lesson.
1 down, 15 to go.

AK

dboss and sinus007,

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we executed the game plan flawlessly in Point #7 below, including the 4th quarter.  But first some highlights.

1.  I've never liked having home court advantage.  At least for the first two games.  It's a kind of "this is as good as it gets," kind of thing.  You have to win both games just to tread water.  And if you win both games, all you're going to get is, "Well, you did what you should have done.  You held home court.  You can only go downhill and the visitors actually have the advantage, especially if you come in with a "we've got nothing to lose" attitude and just for the halibut try and take both games.  Sound familiar?  Home court only matter if you have to go to G7.  Otherwise it's a gift that should just stay on the shelf with "In Case Of Emergency..." written on it.  

2.  Well balanced scoring.  Wow!  JT on a mission with a 3D, setting the tone early.  Everyone else with excellent numbers.  Bench showed up very well.  Thought we started the 3-bomb parade too soon and we'd wind up shooting 15% from 3 initially but they started falling with Doogie, AL and Pritch all deserving and earning great praise.  But go with where you're hot. You will lose ZERO games shooting 45%+ from 3-ville.

3.  KP doing work.  He did everything flawlessly.  Inside-Outside mid-range zone buster.  I'm going to have to rewatch.  I didn't see as much zone as I was expecting.  But whatever they threw at us, we had an answer.  

4.  This was a good blowout that wasn't a blowout.  Won by 20.  If we won by more than that, thoughts of the Memorial Day Massacre would creep back into my mind and Celtics fans alike.  We all know what happened there.  If I say it once I'll say it 1,000 times.  This run of ours can remind us of nothing negative prior.  And we've just about seen it all.  We've already put resurrecting last year's MIA contest to rest...We won the 1st game!!

5.  This was a fully operational Death Star, folks.  This G1 win is what I asked for and was granted.  Relentless.  Won't look much better than this.  On the other side of the coin, MIA won't look this bad next game either  

6.  Scuffle - The JT-Martin scuffle was good for us.  This is about as close to a Kevin McHale Clothesline as you are going to get in this day and age.  JB stepping in and JT walking away.  Just because your dude is out (and mark my words.  The longer this series goes on, the much faster Jimmy Butler "mysteriously" and "magically" becomes healed at 100%.)  Hence the urgency to get this over quickly.  The next thing we will have to face from Spo's Bag O' Tricks will be inserting Rozier back in the lineup. Just enough to throw us off?!  I'd be surprised if he doesn't show up Wednesday.  

7.  Back to dboss and sinus007, I don't believe they took their foot off the gas in the 4th.  These are grown men playing against their peers of equal talent.  Every team both sides has runs.  All the top teams this weekend had to deal with good runs from lower seeds.  Could we have covered some of those shots they made a little better?  Absolutely.  But they made 10 in a row that I counted with a good chunk being 3's.   We got up by 35, dropped it to 13 and won by 20.  Like I said above, we don't want anything to happen that will remind us negatively of past performances.  I can assure you the media has their fingers on the dump (truck) button and as soon as we do anything that remotely looks like a crack in the wall, they will ram-rod the door down and these Celtics will become distracted.

In summary.  You showed me and you showed me very well, Boston.  I shut my mouth on G1.  Now, show me again.  Maybe this time make it a little more disheartening and humiliating to the competition.  MIA still has the advantage.  They are loose with nothing to lose.  We lose home court, and the odds are we will at some point in these playoffs we will, it is unnecessary pressure we create on ourselves to go win on the road.  Can't say we can't or won't do it, but the having to win on the road box is right next to the home court box.  You actually don't have to open either!!  

Great game, Celtics!!  Now impress me again!!

db

The Miami Heat played well considering they were down killa Jimmy, TRo and JRich.  I mean, c'mon, that's a serious talent depletion.  Having said that, though, I don't know if they would have made a difference, we were rolling for most of the game.  They took their feet off the gas in the 4th and the lead dropped from 32 starting the 4th down to 14 with 2:52 left. Yeah, I know 3 minutes wasn't a lot of time for Miami to rally 14-0 but it just aggravates me when this happens.  It not only gives Miami hope despite being down 30, it gives every other team we'll face hope too.

Not that I feel sorry for Miami.  Between The Time (off the court) Lord and Malcolm one-and-done we have had our share of injuries last season that impeded our path to #18 too.  This was their turn in the barrel for a change.

WHY did Joe leave Tatum in so long?  That fall was completely unnecessary and avoidable because we were way up.  So Tatum could get a triple-double?  If that's the reason Joe needs to reexamine his priorities.  If you watch this you'll see that Caleb Martin had already turned his back before he ran into Tatum AND the ball had not yet gone over Martin's head, so there was no reason for him to turn around like that.  Martin said "his momentum carried him forward".  You weren't going for the ball, asshole.  Will this get league attention?  Probably not, but if Martin does something like that again Joe should send in Queta to turn Caleb Martin into mashed potatoes.




Jaime Jaquez Jr. looked pretty good for a rook.

Tyler Herro was a no-show.


Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
#Celtics' starters went +44.9 with a 79.4 defensive rating. Scored 124 per 100. Pritchard-Hauser-Holiday-Tatum-Horford small ball look scored 158 pts per 100 in 9 min. Allowed 126. +32.2 Double-big with Pritchard in for White posted a 36(!) defensive rating in 6 min.


Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
yesterday
So, the 22 3's for the Celtics today did match the franchise playoff record. They also made 22 in the Game 7 win over Milwaukee in the 2022 Eastern Conference Semis. Yes, the Grant Williams game. The Celtics actually shot more 3's that day (63% of their shots) than today (60%)

When we're hitting our 3s and playing defense I don't think anybody can beat us, Jimmy or no Jimmy.  We shot almost 45% from 3 and 49 of our 82 fgas were 3s.  I don't think I've been shy when I've expressed mixed emotions about this.  I want to win #18 (and 19, and 20 and...) as much as anybody on this board but I fear that we are the final coffin nail in the old NBA.  The Splash Brothers out here in the bay area put that NBA in the coffin but we were able to delude ourselves into believing that we'll never see a shooting tandem like Steph and Klay again and, therefore, that GSW team was an aberration; but here we are doing it too and we don't have shooters of their caliber.  We're doing it with volume.  LOTS of 3s being taken by A LOT of our roster, and that's reproducible around the league.  Brad Stevens has, perhaps, permanently changed the NBA paradigm by showing you don't need the best shooters, you just need lots of them.


The Unicorn had played in a total of 10 playoff games in his entire career heading into yesterday's game.  Imagine that:  he's been in the league for 9 years now and he's played in just 10 playoff games, and #11 is in Da Gahden, where it's always rockin'.  

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Kristaps Porziņģis was asked if he takes the matchup with Bam Adebayo personally: “I don’t care about him. I care about our team and what we’re trying to achieve. This isn’t one on one, me against Bam. This is Celtics vs. Heat.”




Remember when we used to have icy cold 1st quarters and then played catch-up the rest of the game?  it's so much easier when you put them on their heels right from the tipoff.


One down, 15 more to go.


Bob


.

I will say this once, that was a typical Pat Riley play by Martin, JT handled it right, the ref's just took the easy way out, a real sissy move on them. They should have hit Bam with a Flagrant on Derrick Wihte. So.......they want to play dirty, shove it down their throats, do not get cocky, and rub their face in it Wednesday. One time only, I am with Scal on this. They were out there to hurt someone, and faking that they cared later does nothing for me. Why the heck do we have to wait until Wednesday?????????????? punch the right in the mouth again

I loved how engaged we were defensively for almost the entire game. If we play D like that (and hopefully for a full 48 minutes) they cannot beat us.

As others have mentioned you can never take your foot off the gas, that one 4-5 minute stretch knocked a 30 point lead to 15. Hopefully we will learn from that, because other than that, it was a very solid all around effort.

JT was tremendous, he made the right reads almost every time. I loved how we handled their zone. We cracked it so easily Spolstra barely went back to it.

I think you saw the real Caleb Martin yesterday. He is a marginal offense player and a bit of a punk defensively. Certainly not the guy that impersonated Michael Jordan for 7 games last year.

On to game 2. Have to maintain the intensity especially on D and I think we will see the same result.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:I will say this once, that was a typical Pat Riley play by Martin, JT handled it right, the ref's just took the easy way out, a real sissy move on them.  They should have hit Bam with a Flagrant on Derrick Wihte.  So.......they want to play dirty, shove it down their throats, do not get cocky, and rub their face in it Wednesday.  One time only, I am with Scal on this.  They were out there to hurt someone, and faking that they cared later does nothing for me.  Why the heck do we have to wait until Wednesday??????????????  punch the right in the mouth again

The ONLY thing I liked about that sequence was the wat Jaylen went right at Caleb. I really feel like this team is tight - one for all, all for one - and that is what you need to win a championship.

Miami showed some grit and made a few runs. They even came on strong enough that it was necessary to leave the starters in through the 4th.

Martin’s foul undercutting Tatum in the 4th looked unintentional and Tatum handled it the right way. I’m usually in Scal’s corner but I believe he was way off base to suggest Spoelstra could have called for that one. Bush league on Scal’s part, that’s not been Spoelstra’s style. Scal needs to do better.

That tight Celtic 8-man rotation looked solid. 5 games, outside shot of 6 and we move on.

shamrock,

The word I'm hearing similar to yours by the media is connected.  There are only two teams I've heard the media using that term on and it's the two teams the media finally wants to see in the Finals...DEN and BOS.  Last year they were all enamored with the 7th and 8th seeds making it as far as they did when the Red Seas parted for them.  Then they realized that it created a very lackluster Finals and horrific WCF that nobody watched.  They realized they had bitten the hand that was feeding them.  But like all great sports media, they ride you until they are tired of you or their pay is affected and they have now grown tired of the underdog and want what we all want...the best of the best going at it.  I've said it before, you want longshots?  Hockey and Baseball will give you that all week long and twice on Sunday.  Playoff series NBA Basketball is meant for and set up for the best of the best.  

Speaking of Spo's style, NYCelt, this lull up to Wednesday is where he is most dangerous.  That's why we need to Lather. Rinse. Repeat a stronger version Wednesday.  We need to come out even harder.  Now somewhere along the way, we need to show we learned something new this year and that is when the 3's aren't falling, shift to going inside and pounding the boards looking for the And 1's.  We got a hold of ourselves early on in G1 after it looked like we were heading for 15% from 3-ville and really started hitting the crap out of them.  This built a considerable lead which we gave back to a certain degree and finished winning by 20.  A good win and not too ostentatious win to really pissed Spo off.  MIA is coming to take G2 just like after D White made that second splitting layup in G6 last year.  They don't care how they take it, but when I see Spo snapping clipboards and needing to be contained, we'll know we have MIA.  Nowhere near that yet.  But it's coming.  

How do we react?  I like Rosalie's take.  Rub their faces in it for G2 like when a dog craps on your floor.  Again, anything less of an effort gives them an edge going back to MIA for G3 & G4.  Continuing to pass out all these small gifts to the opposition will eventually come back to bite us in the behind. Knock it the Hell off!!

All teams have weaknesses.  We have our own but they are not detrimental.  And they are certainly correctable and/or covered by other parts of our game.  Against a top team, Spo looks for those non-detrimental ones and tries to blow them up.  We're not playing MIA in the playoffs.  We're playing Spo and Riley.  This is not any more prevalent than it is this series. And as BobH so astutely points out, there ain't much of MIA to play this time around.  So it has to be the puppet masters Spo and Riley behind the curtain playing in the mud.  It's just that our team and coach combined are far better than MIA and their brain trust.  And that's what needs to come out on full display for G2.

We need to continue to play with contained rage.    

db

P.S.  dboss, Home court is great to have, don't get me wrong.  I'd much rather have it than not.  No argument there. I'm just saying it only takes one game early on to give it back and then you are on the defensive right out of the gate.  And those two games are G1 & G2.  You need Home court for those pivotal G5 & decisive G7's.  (Remember Larry Bird was pissed in his 80's tenure when they changed the Finals format from 2-2-1-1-1 to 2-3-2.  His point was the G5 should be at the team that earned home court as if the series is tied 2-2, the road team gets that pivotal G5 in 2-3-2.)  G7 is G7.  That's when you really need home court although we squandered it last year.  Can't EVER have that crapola happen again.  Not in Boston.

Basically, if this game doesn't hurry up an get here I am going to lose it!!!!!! I want this one big time. I want Miami gone. period. Let's hope all the talk is not just that, that they come out and play the exact same way. Like House said, Miami is going to junk this game up big time, clear heads for all on board!!!!!!!!