This past Sunday, the Boston Celtics fell to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Finals of the NBA Playoffs. The Heat won the series 4-2 in game 6. After the Heat took the first two, the Celtics came back and won game 3. In a close game 4, the Heat outscored the Celtics by 3 to secure a 3-1 series lead. The Celtics held on to win game 5 but were not able to force a game 7 as they lost game 6 to end the series.
As with much these days, the NBA regular season and postseason look very different than years past. In a typical playoff scenario, the higher of the two seeds, in this case the Celtics, would have home court advantage for games 1, 2, 5, 7, should they be necessary. This season in the bubble however, all 7 games were played in the same location with no live fans. Jason Tatum, Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart led the Celtics in points. Tatum recorded 3 double-doubles, reaching double digits in points and rebounds. With many questioning Tatum’s contract extension, he was asked about it after the loss to the Heat. Responding, Tatum said on the matter,”But I’m not thinking about that right now. We just lost a series. Just thinking about the guys in the locker room and the games. That’s what I’m thinking about. Stuff like that, going to happen — if it happens — not really my concern, I’m not even thinking about that.” Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and 20-year-old Tyler Herro were stand outs for the Heat. Adebayo recorded 3 double-doubles and Herro recorded one off the bench. Herro was lethal for the Heat fearing no shot from the inside and outside the arc. Herro went 13th in the NBA draft and uses that to fuel him. He stated, “I mean, that’s just who I am. I grew up like that. I’m going to stay like that for as long as I’m in the league.”
While the score at halftime of all the games was within reach for both teams, the Celtics struggled to continue their run throughout the third and fourth quarters. The Celtics were outscored by the heat in both the third and fourth quarters in all but Game 5 of the series. In game 6 however, the Celtics scored 4 points to the Heat’s 26. The Celtics also outnumbered the Heat in turnovers, having more turnovers in 4 of the 6 games of the series. With a young team, the Celtics have depth and time to grow and develop especially with strong leaders to look up to like Tatum. Despite the 4-2 series record, the Celtics managed to keep the games within a relatively small margin:
Heat 114-117, Heat 106-101, Celtics 117-106, Heat 112-109, Celtics 121-108, Heat 125-113
The Heat will meet the Los Angeles Lakers, who took the Denver Nuggets 4-1 in the West Finals, in another best of 7 series beginning on October 1. This will be the Heat’s 5th Finals appearance in the past 10 years, with 2 of those resulting in championships. Jimmy Butler recognized the competition that will ensue but has faith in his team. He spoke during Media Day about this, “That’s it. A really good team. Not going to say that we’re any better than anybody else, but I just don’t think that we’re underdogs. I don’t.” This will be the Lakers second appearance since, with the previous being a win. Led by Lebron James, the Lakers look to follow in the footsteps that were last left by the late Kobe Bryant.