Heat outlast Celtics in 98-95 win
MIAMI- The Miami Heat narrowly defeated the Boston Celtics 98-95 on Tuesday night. This was a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics won that series in seven games. However, tonight the Heat got the victory.
In this game, the Heat were without their star player Jimmy Butler who was sidelined with a back injury. The Celtics were missing several players from their starting lineup, including Jaylen Brown (right adductor tightness), Marcus Smart (right ankle sprain), Al Horford (lower back tightness), and key bench player Malcolm Brogdon (personal reasons).
Despite all these injuries, Boston led for much of the game. They were leading 58-50 at halftime, 82-75 at the end of the third quarter, and were up as much as 14 in the fourth quarter. The Heat went on a 15-0 run in the fourth. The Celtics went six minutes and 27 seconds without scoring from the 8:46 mark in the fourth quarter to 2:19. That is certainly not the time to go cold.
Head coach Joe Mazzulla said about the team’s struggle in the fourth, “Our spacing was off. They were physical, just couldn’t get to the right spacing in the zone. Got a couple of good looks, didn’t make them. Some of those misses led to transition opportunities, and that’s when [the Heat] are at their best in the fourth quarter.”
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The leading scorer for the Heat was Bam Adebayo, with 30 points along with 15 rebounds. Power forward Haywood Highsmith contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Tatum led the Celtics in scoring with 31 points along with 14 rebounds. However, Tatum got into foul trouble late in the third quarter when he picked up his fourth foul. He had to be played more sparingly from then on. With an even thinner bench than usual, this was not an ideal situation for the Celtics.
The Heat shot 36.2 percent from the field, while the Celtics shot 43.2 percent. To make up for this, Miami shot 36.4 percent from three-point range compared to Boston’s 31.3 percent. In addition, Miami committed eight total turnovers, while Boston committed 17.
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An interesting moment in the game was in the third quarter when the Celtics’ Robert Williams was going up for a layup, and Kyle Lowry swiped him across the face. Lowry was called for the foul, and it was reviewed for a flagrant.
The commentators seemed sure that it was going to be called a flagrant foul as there was contact to the face/head region, and it was not a play on the ball. However, it ended up not being called a flagrant foul.
That was a missed call. He made contact with his face, and the ball was a foot above that. In a game that ended with a three-point deficit, a play like that could have swung things the Celtics’ way.
On the Celtics’ second-to-last possession with twenty seconds left, Tatum casually brought the ball up the floor. He didn’t start trying to make a play until there were eight seconds left in the game. It’s almost like he thought the game was tied. He then attempted a pass, and it was stolen by Tyler Herro, essentially sealing the deal for Miami to win the game.
It would have been helpful for Mazzulla to call a timeout when he saw that possession was not going anywhere. It was a great game for the Celtics much of this game, especially considering they had multiple starters injured, but ultimately they could not hold on to the lead in the fourth quarter. Closing out games and not going cold in the fourth quarter will be crucial for this team if they want to continue to be successful this season.