Celtics Smash Heat 143-110 as Examples Grow This Year is Different

Few regular season games provide consensus on where teams stand long-term now. Thursday’s meeting between the Celtics and Heat, despite the timing after a significant trade, relative health on both sides along with the consequence and connection of the involved teams, proved no different. Miami entered on the second half of a back-to-back without Kevin Love and Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Boston shot at a historic rate — 80.5% TS.

“We got out-shot by 14, didn’t turn them over, had 11 turnovers. We did get to the free throw line more, so the shot margin is not too bad, so I don’t know if it’s the best we’ve played,” Joe Mazzulla said. “But it’s probably the most intentional we’ve played … just how the guys impact each other. You take a look at the box score, it’s well-balanced. You take a look at the defensive activity, everyone participated … when we’re at our best, we impact each other on both ends of the floor.”

Many of the caveats that allowed the Celtics to brush off what stands as their lone blowout loss of the season at Milwaukee earlier this month won’t allow Boston to draw vast conclusions from what became a 143-110 win in Miami. Yet clear differences compared to last year, that flashed when the Celtics beat the Heat in their home opener, showed more on Thursday than any other night — with enhancements added in the season’s first half.

Now, ahead of what’ll likely pass as a quiet or standstill trade deadline, Boston won another game that supports mostly standing pat with the team’s current roster also rivals across the east improve. Mazzulla, speaking before yesterday’s game, continued his recent message of everlasting improvement toward the goal of perfection.

“I don’t think they’re competing with us,” Mazzulla told reporters on Wednesday reacting to additions around the east like Terry Rozier. “We haven’t won, so I don’t know why anybody’s competing with us. We haven’t won a championship since 2008. So we’re certainly not the standard. We’re chasing people just as much as people say they’re chasing us … we just have to keep that healthy balance of knowing we’re a really good team, but there are also other really good teams and how do we match up against them and how do we continue to get better as a team?”

Jrue Holiday and Al Horford, further cemented into their roles, combined for 25 points and 11 assists on 10-for-12 shooting. Luke Kornet scored 12 points and provided the game-breaking four straight scoring plays to close the third quarter while Kristaps Porziņģis left injured. Payton Pritchard added 11 points and three assists. Jaylen Brown led that second unit and shined on defense mostly covering Jimmy Butler. All of those dynamics didn’t exist when the teams last met in Boston and emerged as a far cry from what last year’s team showed against Miami in the east finals.

Jayson Tatum began the game attacking Haywood Highsmith, inflicting a pair of fouls on him and continuing his more direct-to-the-basket approach from the team’s win in Dallas. His lone make in the second quarter came along the baseline while his third quarter shooting outburst came away from the ball. He drew 10 free throw attempts, dished four assists and turned the ball over once while shooting 7-for-15 on the day the NBA named him an all-star starter.

Brown’s game reflected his past struggles early, coughing up three first quarter turnovers getting sped up, then flowed into his more recent breakthrough between off-ball scoring impacting the game early and playmaking emerging late. As the Celtics shot ahead by 13 points before halftime, Brown passed out of a double team through Holiday to White for three, grabbed a steal guarding Highsmith and initiated the passing sequence that set up Tatum against Highsmith for the Heat wing’s third foul. Horford found Brown for three on the final play of the second.

His steal in the back court on Highsmith highlighted the win and came at the moment Miami played its zone card for the first time.

The Heat simply couldn’t generate stops from there, scoring possession-for-possession shortly after halftime with the Celtics, but watching their zone falter against Tatum and Porziņģis catches in the middle. Tatum shot over it, White ran past it and Holiday drove through it. Porziņģis collapsed it and sprayed out to White above the break to find Tatum wide open in the left wing. Boston hit everything.

That’s where Thursday’s result becomes confounding given that 22 threes (on 55% 3PT) marked the Celtics’ season best. They balanced that with Porziņģis post touches (now producing an earth-shattering 1.42 points per possession) early and found the big man for open pick-and-pops before his third quarter ankle turn.

The shooting spike only exacerbated what would’ve been an impressive win regardless. The formula also didn’t prove an anomaly, Boston leading by double-digits in 18 of their last 21 games, along with 30+ point leads in nine of those. Miami, shooting 38.1% from three, generating 14 more field goal attempts, winning the offensive rebound and turnover battles, and kept the Celtics’ feet to the fire until the third.

Tyler Herro became a target of a Holiday back cut and Tatum head-on drive as Boston shot ahead by 21 points. Holiday and Kornet capped the 13-for-19 frame with a steal-and-score and turnaround two from the former before Kornet’s four straight cuts to the basket.

The Celtics’ 49-30 run after halftime emptied the benches, Butler shot only 11 times, fourth on the Heat and new Miami addition Terry Rozier shot 3-for-10. The Heat lost its fifth straight game, ending the team’s 233-game streak without a drought that long. Those aided the legitimacy of the Celtics’ achievement, swinging passes comfortably until stalling for small stretches leading by double-digits between the third and fourth.

The Heat didn’t shoot a free throw until nearly halftime. The array of defensive looks they threw at Boston forced turnovers (11), but never enough stops to pull within 10 after halftime. The Celtics entered relying less on threes, winning 11-of-19 games where they fell below the 36% league average mark from three. Last year, they finished 13-19.

Miami’s sharp offensive movement kept the Heat within 15, but that didn’t satisfy Erik Spoelstra after challenging the Celtics more than any other opposing coach in recent years. He called Boston the standard after the loss and set out on solving them. The Celtics set some old issues aside, and while them emerging in spot situations scares some fans, the team indisputably appears different. Even if they could stand to produce more consistent quality shots at the rim and from mid-range while getting to the free throw line — relative weak spots. Almost all of their losses coming in clutch finishes points to that area

Staggering results on Thursday when shots fall allow them to avoid crunch time. With internal reinforcements growing, there’s added evidence to the case that Porziņģis would’ve changed last year’s series against Miami. Without him, the remaining group learned enough to prevail. They also added Holiday, who finished 7-of-8.

“We played a really good game,” Mazzulla said. “I said to a few of the guys, this game is really good, but it means nothing at all in the grand scheme of things if we don’t take the lessons we need to and apply it to the next game. You enjoy it until we get to the plane and then it’s onto the next one … whether we won or lost here, it’s understanding what we’ve done well, the areas of the game that we’ve really improved and fighting to keep those.”