Celtics-Heat: Good O loses to better D
By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
Yep, Boston beat Miami again. So what's it all mean?
First, the big picture. As far as statement games go, home team winning by three isn't exactly a fist pounding the table. Further, one can easily rationalize the Celtics' 3-0 mark against the Heat -- the wins were by eight, five and three points, and if Miami wins the final meeting on its home turf in March, this may seem like much ado about nothing.
I'm not buying the injury-riddled-Celtics line, either -- not when they knew the stakes and, as a result, played their top six players virtually the entire game. Any minutes from Shaquille O'Neal,
Delonte West or
Marquis Daniels would have come at the expense of one of their top six players or of
Von Wafer, who scored 10 points in 14 minutes.
Finally, although Boston won the game and clinched the tiebreaker, there remains a strong possibility that a conference finals meeting between these two teams would open in Miami. Monday's Playoff Odds project the Heat to finish with 59 wins and the Celtics with 58.
With all that said, this game did not bode well for Miami in the playoffs. So instead of focusing on all the small stuff -- that
Mike Miller actually took a shot, for instance, or the under-reported fact that
Dwyane Wade absolutely torpedoed the much larger
Glen Davis off the ball on the final play -- let's look back at the big picture of the three meetings between these teams and explain why.
In the three meetings, what stands out is how Boston's defense continues to make Miami's offense -- and, by extension, any iso-heavy offense -- look positively awful. I think this is the most important takeaway from Sunday, much more important than the big to-do about Miami's 1-6 mark against the team with the best record. (A top team struggling against other elite teams seems as though it should be important, but every shred of evidence suggests it isn't. Heat fans will be familiar with this concept, as their team won a title in 2006 despite losing to virtually every good team in the regular season.)
To me, the Miami offense versus Boston defense matchup is the major roadblock between the Heat and a championship. At full strength, I would take Miami in a seven-game series against every other team in the league, even the Lakers or San Antonio. Against Boston? It's hard to endorse the Heat when they can't score.
If you're handicapping the race for the title, it also sets up a rock-paper-scissors situation among the contenders. I think Boston likes playing Miami more than trying to handle L.A. or San Antonio. I think Miami would much rather face L.A. or San Antonio than Boston. And I think L.A. or San Antonio would much rather face Boston than see Miami in the Finals.
Unfortunately for the Heat, they're likely to have to go through Boston to get to the Lakers or Spurs. (I say this not dismissing Chicago or Orlando, but the most likely conference finals scenario is Heat-Celtics.)
But let's get back to the offense. In three games against the Celtics, the Heat have scored 80, 82 and 107 points, and even the 107 comes with an asterisk -- Miami fell way behind thanks to a 46-point first half in that game before turning on the jets late. That's been a common theme, in fact, as the Heat and Celtics have played virtually the same game three different times. In each, Boston took a double-digit lead, Miami stormed back in the fourth and then Boston made a few plays at the end to clinch it.
But all three games have been similar in another way: Wade was just awful.
If the Heat are to beat the Celtics, this can't be the case. Wade is the Miami player matched up against the weakest defender in Boston's starting five,
Ray Allen. He is the one who needs to take advantage of all the extra attention the Celtics pay to
LeBron James. And he's the one most capable of putting fouls on the Celtics' starters and getting into their less gifted bench.
Instead, he's been absolutely brutal. Wade was 6-of-17 with six turnovers yesterday, and it was the
best game he's had against Boston this season. Overall he's 12-for-45 from the field -- that's 26.7 percent if you're scoring at home -- with an amazing 18 turnovers against just 13 assists in the first three games.
LeBron and
Chris Bosh haven't gone gangbusters, either, at least by their standards, and I think there's a big-picture reason for this involving playing styles.
Miami's three aces are at their best going one-on-one. Wade is the most extreme in this regard, but James and Bosh are also most comfortable when they can stop the ball and size up the defense before attacking.
Unfortunately, we have reams of data suggesting that one-on-one offense against Boston's defense doesn't work very well. There's too much help from the big guys, and they load up on the strong side too aggressively. Because that's much of what the Heat do, this matchup may remain a vexing one come May.
In contrast, what works against Boston is the drive-kick-space approach. Those types of teams have seen their offensive games largely unaffected by going against the Celtics' normally daunting D. Even the bad ones -- think Toronto -- have put up decent offensive numbers; the Raps broke the century mark three times in four meetings and even beat Boston once.
And the decent-to-good ones? They've fared rather well. Phoenix has beat Boston three straight times. New York scored 101 and 116 in two narrow losses. Houston, Dallas and San Antonio each cleared the century mark in Boston; the first two won, and the Spurs narrowly lost. About the only team that plays this way that hasn't had a lot of offensive success against the Celtics is Orlando.
The spectacular news for the Celtics, of course, is that most of those aforementioned teams are safely ensconced in the Western Conference, and Boston may never see them come the playoffs. And the only one in the East, the Knicks, is so weak defensively that the Celtics would probably beat it anyway, even if they end up paired in a 2 versus 7 matchup in the first round.
The Heat, however, have no such luck. I'd pick them against anyone from the West, but they may never get the chance because they can't score on the Celtics. Despite the narrowness of the outcome, that's my enduring takeaway from Sunday. If it comes to a Miami-Boston Eastern Conference finals, the Heat will need to play some outrageously good defense to win, because all indications are that their offense matches up terribly against the Celtics.
