Miami Heat v Boston Celtics - Game 5, Friday 9/25, 8:30 PM EST - Heat Lead 3-1

[3ballbomber]

Closeouts are the toughest of games. Was never meant to be easy. Tho we were ready for the challenge early. We looked loose, sharp & converting to pts on the board. As a result we had a fantastic 1Q. Entire 1st half was good for the most part when you consider we played ZERO Zone defense....

.....Unfortunately we failed to put our foot on their throats in the 3rd Q. Allowed them to ignite for 41pts...HUGE! 41-25 in the 3Q Again, we had another scoring drought, which, in most cases usually don't overreact. We put out heads down, continue to grind & keep fighting. Not this time. Damage was done & just too much momentum frm C's.

How did it happen? What ever the reason the mindset just wasn't there & that's where Haslem came in & sprayed the squad. But the team looked zapped.

I've always believed we were always playing catch up because of few factors & 1 main reason is Butler. He's way too tentative, passive & unaggressive until the 4Q. When you look at gm4 he made the adjustment & looked to be aggressive early. He dropped 6pts in the 1Q. We lead most of the way except for a 1pt brief lead by C's in the 2nd but we were in control for the majority. Butler is key! He's our Tatum. When you look at Jayson he's already dropped 2 30pt games. gm4 he dropped 28 in the just the 2nd half Butler must drop those sort of numbers for us to finish this series. 17pts today won't cut it.

When we're in a scoring drought that should be Jimmy's time to take initiative, be aggressive & look for his shot. But he looks slow, looks doubtful, looks to pass too much even when he goes deep in the paint. He's been doing it all series. In gm4 he airballed a point black shot in the paint w/ no defenders. I understand we don't play hero ball & we have a system in which we try to generate the best possible shot & live w/ the result knowing we executed as best as we could. But Herro didn't exactly score all his 37pts within our system. For example the long range 3 & his euro step drive. Those are moments where he just looked to be aggressive & score. You take away Herro in gm4, do we win it? Butler needs to do the same when in one of our droughts. He's gotta dig deep.

Get Wade to have a lil chat w/ Jimmy, tell him how superstars take over when the moment calls them to. The only player who wanted it today was Goran.

Today tested who we truly are & what we're lacking. I'm still confident we take this series but we gotta dig deep for gm6.

Great post. Nice to see you here!

Goran is as much to blame as everybody else, half ass ed effort, he waited until the 4th quarter to start giving a d amn.

But at least Dragic had the nuts to attack & try to get something going. Goran also made some timely shots that were needed. Dragic has also been our leading scorer throughout the playoffs. 3pts, zero rebounds & 3 assists from Butler in the 2nd half is not all-star caliber. That's bench stats.

Again i love Butlers role for this team. He does a lot of good things on the floor. but he needs to be batman once in a while esp when games count, & esp when others are having difficulty. We need that guy to come out, show his nuts & be aggressive. Butler is nothing more than a Shane Battier out there when we need a Dwyane Wade.

[Wiltside]

Calling him Battier is a little over the top. He’s still averaging around 18 on the series. If you’re expecting him to be Lebron you’re going to be let down.

I agree that he needs to look for his more often though. It often seems that we try to get our shooters going early by making reads and finding Duncan or Jae, and while it’s great when they start hitting and it opens up the floor for paint attacks, I’d like to see Jimmy and Bam start out strong next game. TBF he had a strong first half yesterday and just completely flamed out in the second like our whole team excluding Goran did.

Jimmy is capable of more, we know that. But we also have to give credit to Boston’s defense for making life tough on him. It’s times like these where his lack of a true “go to” move or outside shot start to be noticed more.

What I’d like to see is more dribble hand off with Jimmy and him attacking the paint with purpose looking to score, not kick out. He should be in attack mode and really putting pressure on their interior defense, drawing contact and getting them in foul trouble and himself to the line. That’s when Jimmy is at his best.

We still have 2 opportunities to close this series. I’m nervous but confident that we can take 1 of these games.

[3ballbomber]

Love Jimmy. Respect how he's bought into our culture & system. He absolutely has contributed to us being here. He's a Heat guy...But he's playing a cute game. A monster shouldn't be playing cute.

Gm1: 20pts (Goran 29, Crowder 22)
Gm2: 14pts (Goran 25, Bam 21, Duncan 18)
G3: 17pts (Bam 27, Herro 22)
Gm4: 24pts (Herro 37)
Gm5: 16pts (Dragic 23, Duncan 20)
= ave 18.2ppg

So he has never been the leading scorer. Not ONCE. Again it's not about hero ball & we're not asking him to carry this team. but you gotta ask the question here....Is he going to continue to ride his teammates coat tails? As i stated, take away Herro's 37pts in gm, do we win that? Butler stated after gm3 that he doesn't necessarily need to be that guy who scores most points, that to me is abit of a cop out. That doesn't sound like a man willing to do all it takes & it is showing on the court. He needs some accountability also.

Cute won't cut it. Jimmy needs to be a monster not a role player. somebody get Wade to call this cat.

like i have said before jimmy is not that guy that will take you to a championship. he's more of a playoff type of guy and to be honest he has done more than he did while in Minnesota and Chicago. he is not a huge vol scorer,that's not him.he is in a sense a super role player than can score some points ,share the ball and get some rebounds and some steals as well but that's it.


this team has overachieved this season and i'm fine if they stop here or stop at the finals or better yet win it all but as currently construed and coached is a flawed team with a flawed coach that sometimes knows how to adjust while the next time will forget how to adjust.

this team needs a super star and a better supporting cast.keep herro,crowder,tragic,kelly,robinson and trade to improve every one else in the offseason.hell keep jimmy if you want too but add someone that can score and demand respect on a nightly basis. the heat dont have this player yet.

yes its frustrating to see how they destroyed themselves in the
3rd quarter agaisnt a mediocre team.yes i have said it cabron will mope the celtics if they make it to the finals.its a pretty turnover prone time of a team that relies too much on hero ball in order to win.

tatum,smart and the others aint no stars,they are scrubs and the boston fanbase knows this

Finally someone who sees the Celtics the way they are! [b]And, who sees Spo as flawed. That man would have been through many other teams and gotten fired plenty if he had not started coaching in this franchise. He’s got two rings despite of his shortcomings not because he’s a great coach. [/b]


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So we go 11-4 in the playoffs. Lose just 2 games prior to the ECF. While beating East #1 seed & 1 game from advancing to the NBA finals w/ a team full of rookies & inexperienced players and Spo is flawed & not a good coach?

[3ballbomber]

Calling him Battier is a little over the top. He’s still averaging around 18 on the series. If you’re expecting him to be Lebron you’re going to be let down.

I agree that he needs to look for his more often though. It often seems that we try to get our shooters going early by making reads and finding Duncan or Jae, and while it’s great when they start hitting and it opens up the floor for paint attacks, I’d like to see Jimmy and Bam start out strong next game. TBF he had a strong first half yesterday and just completely flamed out in the second like our whole team excluding Goran did.

Jimmy is capable of more, we know that. But we also have to give credit to Boston’s defense for making life tough on him. It’s times like these where his lack of a true “go to” move or outside shot start to be noticed more.

What I’d like to see is more dribble hand off with Jimmy and him attacking the paint with purpose looking to score, not kick out. He should be in attack mode and really putting pressure on their interior defense, drawing contact and getting them in foul trouble and himself to the line. That’s when Jimmy is at his best.

We still have 2 opportunities to close this series. I’m nervous but confident that we can take 1 of these games.

A Glorified Battier. Jimmy plays good D, Passes well, shoots 3's once in a while & drives & attacks once in a while. Hell Battier may have shot better % on 3s. But he was a role player/defensive specialist - Butler isn't playing much different. Nope i'm not expecting him to be lebron, but i do expect aggression & the willingness to shoulder the offense once in a while, esp in games such as yesterday when it was time to finish off a team that looked like they were mailing it in. I'm not even asking Butler to do it every game.

I agree w/ you for the most part. I do think too that butler is capable of more.....but for some reason is hiding & not giving his best in the moment. his dribbles look shaky, hesitates on jump shots and drives, gives weak passes, soft catches and always quick to pass off the ball like it's a hot potato. You can credit Boston's defense all you like but Why has Goran been able to outscore Jimmy 3 out of these 5 games. Dragic has been able to score over 20pts multi times where as Butler just ONCE! Hell Herro is averaging just 1.7pts less than Butler.

Let's see how he responds in gm6. This game is a must win for us. w/ momentum swinging back to the Celtics, if this goes to game 7 further momentum & Celtics confidence may be too much to handle for the Heat in a game 7 battle. to me we cannot afford to drop this game. We must finish off Boston tomorrow. Butler has to play a key role in doing that.

[MHeat0279]

well lets just stop now with all the commotion, we all know our streghts and weakneses, either we play up to our stenghts and we win the series or we fail to advance, we overachieved this season and as much as i would like to advance and eliminate this sack of floppers, we must be clear we are not ready for this stage yet. can we advance? yes i think we can.

[KingDavid]

I think a number of you are rightfully upset and disappointed in our performance in the last game.

Let's make some things clear;

-Jimmy Butler is not LeBron James, at all; that's about as unfair of a comparison I can imagine.

-Jimmy Butler is not Shane Battier; the man attacks the basket and gets to the line like crazy, to start.

-Jimmy Butler's problems are that he's inconsistent with his aggression and can be quite passive at times. But he picked up 4 dumb fouls in the parts of the game that we consider early and that got in his head offensively and defensively.

-Spo went away from what worked; we stopped doing dribble hand offs. I was complaining about it all game; especially to Herro.

-Duncan was throwing up awful contested threes outside of the flow of offense. Scoring inside though.

-If Jae can't find the bottom of the net, he needs to sit. He scored in the paint off of cuts, but the reason why he's in the game on offense is to space the floor and hit threes, if he can't do that, his defender won't respect him and clog the lane. Notice how every game he's getting more and more open threes? That's three players on the floor that aren't being respected from downtown in the starting lineup; Jae, Jimmy, and Bam. Without that spacing, Jimmy can't attack efficiently. Honestly, same with Dragic. Dragic didn't start going off until Jae and Jimmy sat.

-Iguodala has the same problem as Jae. Why the hell are we playing him at center? If the Celtics want to play small, put Bam back in at center and punish them for it. Flinging up a bunch of quick bricks and causing long rebounds is not the way to win against the Celtics. That's playing right into their hands. They're the best at defending the three for a reason.

-Herro seriously needs to create off hand offs and nothing else. This walk up dribble and create a random shot while the defense's feet are set is not how he gets off against a great defensive team. Their feet need to be scrambling and he needs to make high IQ decisions on the run; which he is very capable of doing. I really don't know why we went away from that. It worked perfectly in the previous game and those plays weren't called again for the most part.

-Which leads me to Bam. We know he's hurt. Don't know the effect it's having on his game other than being easier to hold down on rebounds and refs aren't calling it. But he and Kelly should be running hand offs like mad. The few times we did, we scored often. Just kept running away from that.

Hopefully we win tonight.

[KingDavid]

Tldr; you can't attack the basket against a great defensive team if there's 3 players on the floor that can't shoot. It will remain a problem until Jae is either benched or nailing threes.

[Wiltside]

Hopefully he finds his stroke, otherwise there’s a really big Joe Johnson stench to his series.

[Umbooki]

Lord help us if we come out flat in Game 6 (we shouldn't). We're this close to calling Bam the next Dexter Pittman.

[RexBoyWonder]

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