You give a trained team like the Miami Heat a floor to run as you backpedal to defend in transition, you will have regrets. When they didn’t do that, the Celtics telegraphed passes across the court, throwing pick-sixes into the arms of nearby Heat players. They settled for a number of awkward jumpers, otherwise forcing off-balance and well-defended shots around the rim. You could see the Celtics were uncomfortable, unsure of what to do. That was a large part of how Miami ate away at Boston’s 12-point lead as the second quarter went on. And, it just so happens that the Heat love to go zone. One of the best ways to tell whether a team is coached well is to monitor how quickly they adapt to a zone defense. Mazzulla was a fan of Pritchard’s aggressiveness and physicality – was he sending a message? Doing so gave them a nine-point lead early in the second frame, forcing Miami into a timeout. If Boston isn’t going to feature a real point guard to organize that end of the floor, they have to play quickly. Brogdon might be the only real point guard on the team, but Mazzulla only went to him for 26 minutes in this game. That means there’s not a lot of structure when the game slows down. As Marcus Smart said not so long ago, the Celtics’ offense is random. Turning defense into quick offense is the best way for this Celtics team to score. Tatum found the mismatch in transition, scoring a layup after backing his way down to the paint on an isolation. Third, Gabe Vincent was well off the mark on an early-clock three in Miami’s halfcourt offense. Malcolm Brogdon cashed in on a pull-up three in transition. Second, Lowry made a bad pass for a live-ball turnover. A quick bounce pass from Tatum, a quick pivot and rocket to Derrick White in the corner, easy money on a corner three. Kyle Lowry blew a pick-and-roll coverage, leaving Williams to make himself available to Tatum out of the short roll. Not a transition opportunity, but Boston had the right pace on what came next. The key for the Celtics to get going typically involves pace in transition, and that was how they went about jumping ahead in the opening two minutes of the second quarter.įirst, Grant Williams blocked Adebayo, resulting in a kicked ball turnover. Still, Boston punched back in the early stages of the second quarter. The Celtics only led by one point heading into the second quarter, giving the Heat confidence that they had withstood a first chess move by the home team. And it just didn’t pay off in the first quarter. Not just neutralizing the threat, but taking over and zapping the road team’s momentum right where it sits. There needs to be a pretty immediate response for that to be a worthwhile move.
Taking Williams III out is fine if that adjustment makes your offense flow easier. He was the only keeping the Celtics from being in a double-digit hole before they could blink. He blew up a lob in the paint, he blocked a Butler side-step three, and then forced a rim-out on a Butler midrange jumper. Boston struggled to find a rhythm in the first few minutes.īut, Williams III was the only Celtic making plays on defense. Miami scored a bit too easily coming out of the gate. But, you can get a general feel for how desperate the home team down 1-0 is in the first few minutes of the game. Sure, you’re not going to decide a 48-minute game in the first five minutes of the first quarter. It made little sense to this writer that Joe Mazzulla substituted Robert Williams III out after Miami opened up a small lead in the early moments of the game.
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