Miami's victory in Boston in Game 2 has several explanations. The first, the most natural and the strongest, is the 3-point address with the superb 23/43 behind the arc. The second is the defense which hampered the Celtics, who only had Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum to be dangerous (61 points out of 101).
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy”, explains the second. “There is history between these two clubs, especially in recent years. It's the playoffs too, and against this team, it's never what you expect. »
Deprived of Jimmy Butler, Terry Rozier but also Josh Richardson on the outside, the Heat do not have, on paper, the weapons to fight against the best team of the regular season. But with great mental and technical resources, anything is possible.
Pushing the Celtics to overthink the unexpected
Particularly in defense, illustrated by the performance of Kristaps Porzingis. The regular season duels had shown that the interior would make life easier for the Celtics against Erik Spoelstra's defensive schemes.
In this Game 2, the Latvian was stifled with 6 points at 1/9 on the shoot and two lost balls. Never comfortable or in a good position, he endured events, the Heat refusing to let him settle in the low post.
“They force you to think. They do something on one possession, then another on the next, then another on the one after that,” notes the former New York and Dallas. “They change on defense, then they don’t do it anymore. So it gets a little stuck, because we start to think too much and we rush. »
Joe Mazzulla and his players were unable to find a solution to revive Kristaps Porzingis, trapped and stuck from start to finish. So it was Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum who did the work to try to come back, but the Celtics' collective play was far from its best level.
“I think we need to be more creative,” answers Jayson Tatum. “The playoffs are about adjustments from one game to the next and the Heat did that. They don't make it easy for us to catch the ball, to easily serve Porzingis. They made life difficult for us. Our job is to react in real time, as we can from one match to the next. »
“They are well coached. They had a good plan in place for this match, they had confidence and they did what they wanted to do. We must respond”continues Jaylen Brown, before Game 3 in Florida on Saturday evening.
