Notable news on injury report for Heat, Boston. And fallout of Celtics squabble
Down 2-0 to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, the Boston Celtics are trying to put another difficult loss and a very public emotional outburst behind them. But they also appear on the verge of adding a key player.
Forward Gordon Hayward, who has missed 11 consecutive games with a sprained ankle, is listed as questionable for Saturday’s Game 3 (8:30 p.m., ESPN). He averaged 18.5 points this season.
Meanwhile, the Heat listed Andre Iguodala as probable for Game 3. He missed the second half of Game 2 with tightness in his back. Iguodala is averaging 3.6 points, 2.5 rebounds and 19.1 minutes in 11 playoff games for the Heat, all off the bench.
Because Boston had no media availability Friday, the team did not offer an immediate response to a report by The Athletic’s Shams Charania that guards Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown had a heated confrontation inside the locker room after Thursday’s game and needed to be separated by teammates.
Charania, quoting sources, said that Smart “stormed into the Celtics postgame locker room saying that other players needed to be held accountable and not simply point the finger toward him when things are going wrong.
“As Smart continued and his voice grew louder, sources said Brown snapped back and shouted that Celtics players must stay together and that their actions must come as a team, not individually, and that Smart needed to cool off. Those sources added Smart had verbal exchanges with a couple of the assistant coaches during the game.
“Smart and Brown had a tense interaction inside the locker room, with objects thrown around. Teammates diffused the situation before any physical altercation could take place.”
Charania said Smart and Brown have subsequently resolved their issues.
But ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that “nothing in the locker room escalated to anything close to a physical confrontation” and that Celtics coach Brad Stevens held a late-night hotel meeting with Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker, Brown and Smart to talk through their issues.
Reporters outside Boston’s locker room heard screaming after the game, but the Celtics predictably downplayed it.
“It was nothing,” Walker said.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Tatum said. “Just talking about the game.”
Brown told The Athletic: “Obviously we feel like we could have won, we should have won, but we didn’t. So just a lot of emotions flying around. That’s it.”
And Brown praised Smart, saying: “He plays with passion, he’s full of fire, and that’s what I love about him most, to be honest. He has that desire and that will, and we need him to continue to have that. It’s ups and downs with families all the time, but we embrace each other for who we are. Who Marcus is, I love him for it.”
Stevens attributed the commotion to the emotion of losing a playoff game but added: “We’re not beating this team if we’re not completely connected on both ends of the court. Got to get back to being that, which we’ve been at times.”
THIS AND THAT
A few notes facts from ESPN’s research division:
▪ The Heat held the Celtics to 5-of-15 shooting and five turnovers using the zone in the second half of Game 2. Boston managed just 25 points on 32 possessions against Miami’s zone.
“This isn’t about zones or defenses and offenses and stuff like that,” Stevens said. “We’ve just got to be better.”
▪ The Celtics scored only 14 paint points (on 7-of-13 shooting) in the second half after scoring 32 paint points (on 16-of-24 shooting) in the first half.
▪ Jimmy Butler had three steals in clutch time, the most by any Heat player in clutch time of a playoff game in franchise postseason history and the most in his career, regular season or playoffs. Butler had three steals total in clutch time in his playoff career entering Game 2.
▪ Game 2 marked the first time the Celtics lost when Brown, Tatum and Walker all scored 20 points in the same game. They were 6-0 when Brown, Tatum and Kemba Walker all scored 20 or more points in the same game.
NOTABLE
The Heat has outscored opponents by 104 points with Goran Dragic on the court during these playoffs, over 386 minutes. Entering Friday, that was the NBA’s third-best plus-minus during the playoffs, behind the Clippers’ Ivica Zubak (plus-110) and the Lakers’ Anthony Davis (plus-108).
The rest of the top five: the Lakers’ LeBron James at No. 4 (plus-101) and the Heat’s Bam Adebayo at No. 5 (plus-95).
▪ During a Friday morning radio appearance on ESPN’s “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,” Adebayo was asked how many replays he has seen of his game-saving block of Tatum’s dunk in overtime of Game 1.
“Every time ‘SportsCenter’ pops up on my TV or a TV,” Adebayo said. “But I deleted social media for the playoffs, so I haven’t even seen it much on social media. But on the TV, I definitely see it a lot.”
Adebayo said “besides us playing in Game 2, I haven’t seen [Tatum] around in the bubble” after the Game 1 block.
“Me and Jayson played AAU together, so we’ve known each other for a long time,” Adebayo said. “But I haven’t seen him yet. This is the playoffs. I’m worried about the Miami Heat.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 5:48 PM.
