NBA Eastern Conf. Finals: Gm 1 – Celtics vs Heat – 6:30PM, Tues. 09/15/20

[Jaqua92]

I can promise you all that Jaqua92 is going to be as cool as a cucumber This series. As far as I'm concerned, the season is done. Everything else is gravy. This team has blown away expectations and made the conference finals. Getting to the finals would be awesome, but honestly losing to the heat here is nothing to be upset about.

Smart's defense is as great as ever. He seems to have cut back on the bone headed offense So I'm coming around on him. Jaylen Brown is showing flashes of what he can be. A solid number two on a championship team. Maybe number three. Jerry is out on Kemba.

And Tatum is making that leave to super stardom. Still a lot I would like to see him improve on, but the passing is incredible.

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[London2Boston]

It’s going to be harder to guard those guys, but I also think it should be easier for us on the other end.

Miami will definitely have a couple games where they will be crazy hot from three, we need to find a way to match that.

[CelticsPride18]

We need to hunt Robinson and Dragic on offense.

[celticfan42487]

Miami's half court offense is much harder to defend than that of Toronto. Stevens may have to bring out our defensive blueprint against the pre-KD Warriors for this one. Heat just run a ton of action with players screening, cutting, running every which way until they get a wide open look. They have Bam as their more offensively-equipped Draymond Green, who they rely on a lot to initiate and facilitate on offense. Then they have shooters from every position if they wanted and cutters/drivers like Butler/Dragic/Herro.

This isn't an easy matchup either. Not as tough defensively but harder to guard than the Raptors. I wanna say Celtics in 6 but I think we're going the full length again. Six if we're clicking on all cylinders, we don't tire out, and we get awesome Gordo for at least a game.

EDIT: And just like with the Raps, the regular season meetings don't mean much. Heat were on 2nd night of a B2B for all of them. They were missing Butler for one, Dragic for another, and Jae/Iggy for the two earlier matchups which Cs won. They were starting Meyers Leonard who's barely playing now. We also had Hayward for two of those games, even the best player in one.

Interestingly the Heat play as low pace and rarely get fast break points. They also get endless fouls and parade to the FT line.

While they have a huge edge in depth and 3 point shooting... if we can generate turnovers and get out on the break that should negate that.

So while the Heat making or missing shots will decide the series overall, just behind that is how much can Boston disrupt Bulter, Bam, and Dragic's playmaking to get turnovers and get out on the break to get easy offense.

[Celts17Pride]

We wanted Danny Ainge to pick Markelle Fultz over Jayson Tatum, and Bender over Jaylen Brown. Us as Celtics fans right now. Clowns

Not me. Never wanted Fultz or Bender look it up.

[jonige94]

Limiting Herro's and Robinson's 3's will be the key

[London2Boston]

We wanted Danny Ainge to pick Markelle Fultz over Jayson Tatum, and Bender over Jaylen Brown. Us as Celtics fans right now. Clowns

Not me. Never wanted Fultz or Bender look it up.

I was happy with Brown. I was drinking the I.T and Fultz kool aid though Shame on me.

[Bar Fight]

Destroy these **** ****

[Feed Your Head]

Obviously this Heat team is better, but they kind of reminds me of a much better coached version of the Sixers team we beat in 5 a few years ago. When they had Redick, Covington, McConnell. Butler is better than anyone on that Sixers team, but I feel like we can exploit a lot of the same things offensively.

Our guards and wings just destroyed them, whether going ISO, forcing mismatches via PnR, etc. The Celtics will make the Heat pay anytime they want to play Dragic, Herro, and Robinson together, or even when just two of them are on the floor.

I’m not discounting the Heat, Butler is an animal, Bam is great, Spo is an elite coach, and they are fully capable of winning this series. But I’m feeling Celtics in 5 or 6, I just think we are equipped to give them a ton of trouble on both ends of the court.

[BleedGreen1989]

Obviously this Heat team is better, but they kind of reminds me of a much better coached version of the Sixers team we beat in 5 a few years ago. When they had Redick, Covington, McConnell. Butler is better than anyone on that Sixers team, but I feel like we can exploit a lot of the same things offensively.

Our guards and wings just destroyed them, whether going ISO, forcing mismatches via PnR, etc. The Celtics will make the Heat pay anytime they want to play Dragic, Herro, and Robinson together, or even when just two of them are on the floor.

I’m not discounting the Heat, Butler is an animal, Bam is great, Spo is an elite coach, and they are fully capable of winning this series. But I’m feeling Celtics in 5 or 6, I just think we are equipped to give them a ton of trouble on both ends of the court.

They played a ton of zone in the regular season but not much in the bubble if I'm correct.

Do they go zone? If not, what is there answer on Kemba? They don't have a Lowry or Van Fleet and Dragic doesn't scare you on that end. Hopefully Kemba isn't just happy to be this far because I think he can have a big series.

[CelticsPride18]

Will Kanter play in this series??
Grant should get minutes over Semi.

[Valid]

Will Kanter play in this series??
Grant should get minutes over Semi.

He'll probably get some minutes against Bam, but he cannot see the floor against Olynyk (or Leonard if he plays).

[JHTruth]

Will Kanter play in this series??
Grant should get minutes over Semi.

He'll probably get some minutes against Bam, but he cannot see the floor against Olynyk (or Leonard if he plays).

Timelord will be huge in this series as I expect The is to be in foul trouble alot. Kanter will see desperation mins against Bam but otherwise he's our worst player

[Green89]

Dragic is like Lowry in that he will throw his body and arms into a defensive player to generate a foul call. It's one of the most dishonest ways to play basketball and why I can't stand players like Lowry and Dragic, who use trickery rather than ability or skill to gain an advantage. And that's not to say that most players don't do this at some point, but Lowry probably does it 80% of the time he shoots with someone on him. Dragic is not that bad, maybe doing it only 40%, but still more than most. Harden is also up there, but I think Lowry is still tops in the league. On one foul call last night, I had to look closely at the replay, expecting to see Lowry initiate the contact, but he actually didn't that time, one of the few rare times he didn't in our series.

[ConstableGeneva]

With so small a sample size and several variables that come into play in Miami's matchups this postseason, these numbers might as well be noise at this point. But Miami's most-used lineup in the playoffs can score the heck out of the best of them -- 118.8 pts per 100 possessions (and they faced the #1 defense in the regular season albeit Giannis was injured and Bud is a dud). For comparison, our most-used lineup scored just 104.8 pts per 100 possessions (against the Simmons-less Sixers and the #1 defense post-ASB).

Replace Robinson with Herro and that lineup (their 2nd most-used lineup) can not only score but also defend well. While I admit I haven't seen him play much, I think Herro is a much better defender than Robinson. Dragic is the only weak link in that lineup and he's still got length/size against Kemba.

As with the Raptors, I would love a healthy Hayward in this series to help with our offense and ease the pressure on Kemba/JT. Heat's also a deeper team than us. This is gonna be a higher-scoring series. We'll need all the ammunition that we can get.

[steefP2]

Ok I've been thinking about this series a bit and how this current heat team matches up with us.

Offensive Keys for the Celtics

We'll have some advantages here that weren't present in the Raptors series. Namely they don't have a good point guard defender, unless they put Butler on Kemba but that would leave Dragic on Smart. They can try that and I expect it but honestly Kemba's too quick for Butler and he's gonna run him off a million screens. Everyone's been talking about how Nurse showed how to take Kemba out but Miami doesn't have the personnel to run a box and 1. Yes they might play some zone but Kemba is going to destroy that. So basically a major weak point for the Heat and advantage for the Celtics is the Dragic/Nun/Herro matchup. They are obvious weak links that were not present in the Toronto series.

The other major weak link is obviously Duncan Robinson. Robinson has some good size but is not a very physical or quick player. I think we should try to get Brown matched up with him on O. He'll obliterate that guy.

Tatum will probably get guard exclusively by Butler/Crowder/Iggy. All good defenders but none of them are OG Anunoby (who might be the best iso defender in the league, no joke). I think against Crowder Tatum will have a good quickness advantage. Same with Iggy tho his quick hands might give Tatum some issues as we've seen with FVV and Lowry. Regardless of the matchup there, I think if they play single coverage on Tatum, he'll get his.

Theis/Grant taking and hitting some 3's might prove essential too. Getting Bam out of the paint will open up so much more. The Heat defense is good but it's weaknesses are at the point of attack. It's their help defense that is their strength.

Overall I think we'll be able to score at a reasonable rate here, especially if we get Hayward back by game 3 or 4.

Defensive Keys for the Celtics

There's about 3 match ups that worry me here to varying degree.
Obviously Butler is a great player and Hero/Robinson are great shooters. I'm confident enough in Brown on Butler and Smart on their shooters that won't hurt too much. Smart is the league's nr 1 guy at getting through screens and im counting on him to run after Robinson and Hero. Butler is a smart and talented player but a fairly poor shooter now so Brown should be able to contain him. If necessary, we can switch Brown on the shooters and let Smart take out Butler. Wesley Matthews did a great job there in the previous series and Smart can do all that and more.

Dragic, Onlynyk and Bam. Those are the concerns. Dragic is a big guard for Kemba to handle and he's the exact kind of scorer that does well against this Celtics team. He doesn't want to get all the way to the rim but relies and floaters and crafty midrangers. If he's on one, that might prove quite hurtful. Kemba's done an admirable job on D but this is a different type of challenge for him. Theis won't be able to help as much here as in the Raptors series. Dragic will also eat Kanter or Rob alive.

We've all seen what Ibaka did to us. Olynyk is at least a comparable level of shooter and he has a ton of crafty pumpfakes that are the exact kind of plays Rob Williams struggles with. We might see a quick hook for Theis again, to have Rob match up more with Bam and Theis with Olynyk.

Bam is a physical specimen and has destroyed us in the past. That said, I think Theis has been playing exceptionally well and he'll be allright. It's more the offensive glass im concerned about here.


I still think we'll get it in 6, mostly because the Celtics weaknesses are less pronounced and harder to take advantage of then the Heat. The Heat are a strong but less balanced team imo. Don't get me wrong tho, it's gonna be another war.

[steefP2]

With so small a sample size and several variables that come into play in Miami's matchups this postseason, these numbers might as well be noise at this point. But Miami's most-used lineup in the playoffs can score the heck out of the best of them -- 118.8 pts per 100 possessions (and they faced the #1 defense in the regular season albeit Giannis was injured and Bud is a dud). For comparison, our most-used lineup scored just 104.8 pts per 100 possessions (against the Simmons-less Sixers and the #1 defense post-ASB).

Replace Robinson with Herro and that lineup (their 2nd most-used lineup) can not only score but also defend well. While I admit I haven't seen him play much, I think Herro is a much better defender than Robinson. Dragic is the only weak link in that lineup and he's still got length/size against Kemba.

As with the Raptors, I would love a healthy Hayward in this series to help with our offense and ease the pressure on Kemba/JT. Heat's also a deeper team than us. This is gonna be a higher-scoring series. We'll need all the ammunition that we can get.

Herro is worse then Robinson imo. While he's a little bit quicker, his lack in size and strength (even compared to Robinson) hurt him more then the quickness helps him. Just my opinion of course.

[playa-hater]

Sorry but this is the WORST series for Kanter.. Miami has great shooters.. when Bam sets a pick, Kanter can not even come close to stepping out on a switch to defend the 3 pointers Miami will be shooting..

I would prefer either Williams in this case..

[Jaqua92]

I can see us winning this in 6 with Gordon.

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[ConstableGeneva]

With so small a sample size and several variables that come into play in Miami's matchups this postseason, these numbers might as well be noise at this point. But Miami's most-used lineup in the playoffs can score the heck out of the best of them -- 118.8 pts per 100 possessions (and they faced the #1 defense in the regular season albeit Giannis was injured and Bud is a dud). For comparison, our most-used lineup scored just 104.8 pts per 100 possessions (against the Simmons-less Sixers and the #1 defense post-ASB).

Replace Robinson with Herro and that lineup (their 2nd most-used lineup) can not only score but also defend well. While I admit I haven't seen him play much, I think Herro is a much better defender than Robinson. Dragic is the only weak link in that lineup and he's still got length/size against Kemba.

As with the Raptors, I would love a healthy Hayward in this series to help with our offense and ease the pressure on Kemba/JT. Heat's also a deeper team than us. This is gonna be a higher-scoring series. We'll need all the ammunition that we can get.

Herro is worse then Robinson imo. While he's a little bit quicker, his lack in size and strength (even compared to Robinson) hurt him more then the quickness helps him. Just my opinion of course.

I'm leaning more towards team defense than individual defense. I feel Herro is more reliable in that regard. Probably one of the reasons why he's playing more minutes than Robinson in the playoffs even as a rookie.