Heat to face Celtics in Eastern Conference finals. Here’s an early look at the matchup
A new chapter in the Miami Heat-Boston Celtics rivalry is about to begin.
The Eastern Conference finals will feature a best-of-7 series between the fifth-seeded Heat and third-seeded Celtics at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. It marks the fourth time Miami and Boston have faced off in the playoffs, and the second time the two teams have met in the conference finals.
The Celtics defeated the second-seeded Toronto Raptors 92-87 in Game 7 on Friday night to win their second-round series 4-3 and clinch a matchup against the Heat in the East finals. Miami finished its 4-1 second-round victory over the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday.
The NBA announced dates for the first three games of the Heat-Celtics series, with Game 1 to be played Tuesday at either 6:30 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. The contest will begin at 6:30 p.m. if a Game 7 is necessary in the Los Angeles Clippers-Denver Nuggets series.
Game 2 will be Thursday with the time still to be determined and Game 3 will be Saturday at 8:30 p.m. All East finals games will be on ESPN.
The Heat has six days between series to prepare for the conference finals, while the Celtics have three days after their second-round series went to Game 7.
“We’re going to just take our time, rest our bodies up,” Boston guard Kemba Walker said following Friday’s win to advance to the East finals. “Take a few days and get prepared for a great team. Those guys, [the Heat] balled last series, man. Those guys are nothing to play with.”
In the previous three playoff series between the Heat and Celtics, Miami won two of them. The Celtics won a first-round series against the Heat in 2010, but Miami won the next two playoff series against Boston during the Big 3 era (a second-round series in 2011 and the conference finals in 2012).
But the rivalry between the two organizations extends beyond the court:
▪ Heat president Pat Riley told Celtics president Danny Ainge to “shut the f--- up and manage his own team” in a statement released by the team in March 2013.
“Danny Ainge needs to shut the f--- up and manage his own team,” Riley said in a statement released through a Heat spokesman, when Ainge criticized then-Heat forward LeBron James. “He was the biggest whiner going when he was playing and I know that because I coached against him.”
▪ Hall of Famer Ray Allen received backlash from his former Celtics teammates after leaving Boston to join Miami in July 2012, turning down a two-year, $12 million deal from the Celtics to sign a three-year, $9.5 million contract with the Heat. Entering the offseason that Allen left Boston for Miami, the Heat had eliminated the Celtics in the playoffs in two consecutive seasons and Miami was coming off its first NBA championship of the Big 3 era.
“This is my whole deal with Ray. One, he went to our rival,” retired Celtics great Paul Pierce said during an appearance on the “All the Smoke” podcast earlier this year. “LeBron James was a rival of the Celtics, regardless if he was in Cleveland or Miami. Those were some of the [most] heated matchups. It was just like ‘damn, they just beat us, and then you’re going to go over there.’”
▪ Pierce, now an ESPN analyst, has been a vocal critic of the Heat in recent months.
“If the Miami Heat is close [to winning a championship], that means every team in the NBA is close,” Pierce said on ESPN’s “The Jump” in April. “I don’t think they’re close. Let me tell you when you’re close. You’re close if you have a top-five player playing on your team. That is the main ingredient. I say this and I’ll always say this with the exclusion of the Detroit Pistons, who won in the early 2000s. ... You can go back as far as 20, 30 years and see every championship team or team that has been a champion has had a top-five MVP candidate on their roster. No disrespect to Jimmy Butler; he’s good but he’s not on these other guys’ level.”
Pierce also said on ESPN this week: “I truly believe whoever wins this Boston-Toronto series is going to go to the Finals. Because think about it, when you get tested in a series like this, it carries on to the next series most of the time. Miami hasn’t really been tested all playoffs long.”
But the mutual respect between both organizations is there.
“The Heat are without question really good,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said during seeding play at Disney. “Beating them four times in seven games is going to be exceptionally difficult. They’re just a good team. And then I’d say that Spo is one of the best coaches I’ve seen. I think he’s terrific. Obviously, they had the great runs with [LeBron] James and [Chris] Bosh and [Dwyane] Wade, and all the shooters around those guys. But in each of the last few years, you know what you’re getting every single night with regard to effort, intensity, playing together, playing with speed, playing purposefully. They have a way about them.”
Miami opened the playoffs with an 8-1 record to advance to the East finals, but the Celtics seem to be the Heat’s toughest postseason challenge yet.
Boston is one of only two NBA teams that finished the regular season with a top-five offensive rating and defensive rating, along with the Clippers. The Celtics entered the playoffs with the league’s fourth-best offensive rating and fourth-best defensive rating.
Boston is also the only Eastern Conference team that beat Miami multiple times in the regular season. The Celtics won the season series 2-1 over the Heat, with each matchup coming on the second night of a back-to-back set for Miami.
In the teams’ first meeting of the season, the Heat fell to the Celtics 112-93 on Dec. 4 at TD Garden in Boston. Jimmy Butler led Miami with 37 points, and Jaylen Brown and Walker combined to score 59 points for Boston.
In the teams’ second meeting of the season, the Heat lost to the Celtics 109-101 on Jan. 28 at AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami cut the deficit to five points with 2:43 to play, but Boston held on for the win behind 29 points from Gordon Hayward and 25 points from Brown.
The Heat’s only win over the Celtics came in the teams’ third and final meeting of the regular season, when Miami picked up a 112-106 victory over Boston on Aug. 4 during seeding play at Disney. With Butler unavailable for the contest because of right ankle soreness, Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo stepped up to finish with 21 points, 12 rebounds, one steal and one block.
Much like the Heat, the Celtics feature scorers all over the court. Boston had five players average double-digit points in the regular season — forward Jayson Tatum (23.4 points per game), Walker (20.4), Brown (20.3), Hayward (17.5) and guard Marcus Smart (12.9).
Hayward has missed most of the playoffs after spraining his right ankle in the Celtics’ postseason opener. Boston is hopeful that Hayward will be available to play at some point in the conference finals against the Heat.
This marks the Heat’s first conference finals appearance since the final season of the Big 3 era in 2014. It’s also Miami’s eighth conference finals appearance in the franchise’s 32 seasons — all coming during Riley’s 25 seasons with the organization.
The last time a team seeded fifth or lower made it to the NBA Finals came in 1999, when the eighth-seeded New York Knicks represented the East in the championship series.
The winner of the East finals will advance to the NBA Finals to take on the Western Conference champion, with the Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers still competing on that side of the playoff bracket.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 11:49 PM.
