Plenty of basketball observers felt that Boston's second-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers was the true Eastern Conference finals. The Miami Heat would respectfully disagree. The No. 8 seed waltzed into Boston on Wednesday and took Game 1 against the Celtics with a stunning 123-116 upset.
Just as you'd expect, Jimmy Butler led the way for Miami with 35 points, picking up right where he left off against Boston after scoring 82 points in his final two games against them in last year's Eastern Conference finals. As for Boston's superstar? Jayson Tatum had a stellar first half, but his quiet second was one of the stories of the night. He turned the ball over three times without making a field goal in the fourth quarter as Boston's late-game offense imploded.
The Heat pushed the Celtics to seven games a year ago. They beat them in the Eastern Conference finals in 2020. Disregard record, seeds and expectations. The Heat are here to stay, and if the Celtics don't shape up quickly, they're going to be Miami's latest postseason victim. Here are the biggest takeaways from Game 1.
Miami's shooting is for real
Miami was a bad 3-point shooting team in the regular season. The Heat ranked 27th in 3-point percentage across the first 82 games they played, and that was with Tyler Herro in the fold. This has created a bit of a problem for Miami's postseason opponents, though, because they are operating with outdated information. Defenses continue to game-plan around a Heat team that can't shoot. In the playoffs, Miami has ranked fifth in 3-point shooting, and up until their last few, cold games against the Knicks, they were making just about everything.
Yet Boston, a team equipped to stop 3-point shooters by switching all screens, instead prioritized the rim. Boston's help frequently sagged towards the basket, especially when Jimmy Butler had the ball. The result was a parade of open 3-pointers from the corner. Miami made 16 3's in all, hitting 51.6% of their attempts. The Celtics outscored the Heat by 22 points in the paint, but it didn't matter because Miami was so accurate from deep.
None of this should be especially surprising, though, because Miami's shooting was far better a season ago. The Heat ranked first in the NBA in 3-point shooting during the 2021-22 regular season, but a number of formerly reliable shooters like Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Duncan Robinson all happened to have down years at the same time. All three have bounced back in the playoffs, and with Butler shedding his regular-season 3-point aversion in the playoffs as he does every year, the Heat are right back to where they were a year ago. Now it's up to Boston to accept that their opponent is going to make 3's if they're left wide open.
More of the same for Boston's offense
Boston's core has now been to the Eastern Conference finals five times in the past seven seasons. This is not some young team unaccustomed to the rigors of the postseason. Yet time and time again, this offseason finds ways to collapse down the stretch of close games. Boston entered Game 1 with an 0-3 record in playoff games decided by seven points or less. They're now 0-4.
The beginning of Boston's offensive struggles boiled down to poor process. Jayson Tatum didn't attempt a single field goal in the fourth quarter, scoring all of his points at the free throw line. Most often, he was operating as either a screener or a spacer while another Celtic, most frequently Jaylen Brown or Malcolm Brogdon, tried and failed to create shots. When the Celtics did finally work the ball into Tatum in the last few minutes, he simply wasted his chances. He turned the ball over three times in a 91-second span with under three minutes to play to seal the loss.
Those turnovers nearly sank the Celtics against the Heat last season. Brogdon's turnover at the end of Game 1 against Philadelphia easily could have swung that series to the 76ers. The Brogdon acquisition was supposed to give the Celtics a late-game organizer offensively, but they were just as disjointed as ever Wednesday night.
Miami's Game 1 dominance
Most of the best coaches in the NBA get lauded for their adjustments within a playoff series. Erik Spoelstra has a much more efficient approach. He simply makes his best moves right away and eliminates the need for those desperate adjustments entirely. Since landing Jimmy Butler in 2019, the Heat are 9-2 in Game 1's. Six of those wins have been as the lower seed and three of them have come on the road. (The other three were in the Orlando bubble.)
His tweaks entering this season were relatively subtle. He maintained the same starting lineup and only scaled back two of his weakest defenders (Kevin Love and Duncan Robinson) to adjust to an offense with far more firepower than New York's. He sacrificed the paint by playing smaller, but the extra minutes that went to Caleb Martin and Kyle Lowry were necessities against Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and it gave them the extra speed needed to generate the 15 turnovers that helped win them the game. Once again, Miami's zone defense stifled Boston in the second half. The Celtics have seen it three times in the past four postseasons, however, they still haven't figured out how to set up playmakers at the nail.
Joe Mazzulla will have answers in Game 2. Boston remains a heavy favorite in the series. But Game 1 is typically the best opportunity an underdog has to steal a road game because it's when their tactics are freshest. The Celtics weren't ready for what Spoelstra showed them on Wednesday. His opponents rarely are. Now the onus is on Boston to win a road game. It's worth noting that neither the Knicks nor the Bucks did so in the first two rounds.