One win separates the Heat from NBA Finals. What it needs to improve to close out the Celtics
A look at NBA history shows the Miami Heat is still in a favorable position to advance to the NBA Finals even after its most lopsided loss of the playoffs.
The Heat entered Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals with a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series, but fell to the Boston Celtics 121-108 on Friday night. Boston avoided elimination and narrowed Miami’s series lead to 3-2, with Game 6 set for Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.
Here’s the good news for the Heat: NBA teams that take a 3-1 lead win their series 94.9 percent (244-13) of the time. Miami also owns a perfect 11-0 all-time record in playoff series that it has taken a 3-1 lead in.
But if recent history is any indication, those numbers may not be entirely relevant in the quarantine Disney bubble that the 2020 playoffs are being played in amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With no home-court advantage, the Denver Nuggets have already rallied from a 3-1 hole twice this postseason to eliminate the Utah Jazz in the first round and send the Los Angeles Clippers home in the second round.
“Look, we’re not getting caught up in all of the narratives,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked about the implications of Friday’s loss. “Boston played great in that second half. They deserved and earned what they got. We understand how tough it is to win in the playoffs. We did not compete hard enough defensively, and we paid the price for that.”
Defense was certainly an issue for the Heat in Game 5, as the Celtics scored a series-high 121 points on 45.2 percent shooting and committed only 11 turnovers. Boston also outrebounded Miami 50-38 and scored 15 second-chance points on 13 offensive rebounds.
“They were playing harder than we were,” Jimmy Butler said following the Heat’s Game 5 loss. “We’ve just got to correct that. That’s where it starts for us. Any time anybody is playing harder than we are, we are not playing our best basketball. I think a lot of it for us comes from how hard we play, how together we play, and we’ve got to get back to doing that.”
But the Heat’s defense, which was a strength in the first two rounds of the playoffs, has struggled for most of the series.
The Heat, using a mix of its zone and man-to-man schemes against the Celtics, has allowed 114.5 points per 100 possessions in the East finals. For context, only two NBA teams finished the regular season with a worse defensive rating.
Miami allowed 105.4 points per 100 possessions in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The Celtics are also shooting an efficient 46.9 percent in the East finals, a team shooting percentage that would have ranked seventh-best in the regular season. Most of that damage is coming from inside the arc, as Boston has only averaged 12 made threes per game but has shot 57.1 percent from inside the paint and 50 percent from midrange in the series.
The Celtics duo of Jayson Tatum (averaging 27 points on 43 percent shooting in the East finals) and Jaylen Brown (22.6 points on 54.9 percent shooting) has led the way against the Heat.
“They were able to basically get whatever they wanted,” Spoelstra said of Miami’s defense in Game 5. “They’re a dangerous team when they can see the ball go in the basket.”
Then there’s the three-point shooting, which has been a strength for the Heat all season.
Miami finished the regular season with the NBA’s second-best team three-point percentage (37.9), and it made 14.1 threes per game and shot 38 percent from deep in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
But the Heat shot just 7 of 36 (19.4 percent) from three-point range in Friday’s loss. It’s the worst three-point shooting percentage on a minimum of 30 attempts in a playoff game in franchise history.
This isn’t just a one-game blip either, as the Heat has shot just 26.9 percent from three-point range since the start of Game 2 of the East finals. Miami has shot 30.1 percent on threes in its series against Boston.
“They’ve got length, first and foremost,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said of the Celtics. “They switch a lot, so they do a pretty good job of guarding the line. Then when you’re able to get one, there are very few open looks, so they have a handful of guys that pride themselves on that end. [In Game 5], they did a good job just scrambling, getting guys off the line and making the looks not quite as open.”
The Celtics have earned a reputation as one of the league’s top three-point defenses in recent seasons. Boston held opponents to the NBA’s second-worst three-point shooting percentage (34) in the regular season and has held opponents to the worst three-point shooting percentage (30.4) in the playoffs.
But the Heat also seems to be missing shots it usually makes.
Miami has shot 28.5 percent on open to wide open looks in the East finals, according to the NBA’s tracking stats. The Heat shot 38.9 percent on those shots in the regular season.
“They’re very good at defending the three-point line,” Spoelstra said of the Celtics. “They’ve taken us off of some of our normal rhythm threes. We’ve also missed some open ones. We just have to work more persistently to get the type of shots we want in our wheelhouse, which we’re very capable of even against a very good defense like Boston. Our guys are extremely ignitable. It can happen just like that. But we have to do a lot more things defensively where we’re not just hoping that we make a bunch of threes and a bunch of shots.”
Forward Jae Crowder, who shot 40 percent on threes in the first two rounds, has made 26.2 percent of his shots from behind the arc in the East finals. Guard Goran Dragic is shooting 32.4 percent from deep in the East finals after making 38.1 percent of his threes in the first two rounds, and Robinson has hit 35.7 percent of his threes in the East finals after shooting 39.3 percent from deep in the first two rounds.
The Heat is 2-12 when shooting worse than 30 percent on threes in games this season.
“Our guys are like a powder keg, our shooters,” Spoelstra said. “They can explode at any time. We just have to make sure that we’re not building our whole game on whether we’re making threes or not. It’s more sophisticated than that. But our guys can go off at any time.”
That combination — a lot of missed threes and shaky defense — hurt Miami in Game 5. But it’s also a combination that has slowed the Heat during various stretches throughout the conference finals, regardless of the result of each game.
It’s a problem Miami will likely have to solve to close the series and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
“As you go on, the wins get harder and harder, and doing what we want to do and advancing through this round is going to be the hardest thing we’ve done all season, in our athletic career, for many of us,” Robinson said. “Fortunately, we have coaches and guys that have been there, and know what it takes, but this is certainly a reminder. To think that we were just going to have a good first half and just kind of coast to a victory in this stage of the playoffs — we’re misguided if we’re thinking that.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 3:57 PM.
