“You should never underestimate an NBA finalist.” This could be a new adage in the NBA since the Celtics clearly committed a sin of pride last night against the Heat. After an easy victory in the first round, and while the 2023 NBA finalists are still deprived of Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier, the NBA leaders had decided to skip certain players. More precisely offshore, and in the opposite direction.
Jaylen Brown confirms this: “There are players we wanted to let shoot, and they put their shots. We gave the impression of not stopping them from putting them on. Well done to these guys.”
“These guys” are Caleb Martin, Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic or Jaime Jaquez Jr. None of these four are considered outside shooters, but you only need to put one, then two, to find the confidence and become almost irresistible. It's like Draymond Green a few weeks ago against the Lakers.
“It’s not that we let them shoot, but from the start, we didn’t go out on those we wanted to see shoot” shade Jrue Holiday. “In fact, it was as if we wanted to protect the circle first, while giving ourselves the possibility of climbing on them. But they started to shoot… We knew that Martin is capable of shooting, but their guys shot in all directions, even Jaime Jaquez. »
Finding the right balance
Upon arrival, the Heat set a franchise record with 23 winning baskets on 43 attempts, and the Celtics had never conceded so many 3-pointers in a playoff match. According to MassLive, 13 baskets were made without defensive challenge. Either because the rotations were late, or because there was a desire to skip things.
For Joe Mazzullait's about finding the right distance. “We're going to have to find the right balance, because a lot of these shooters are also good penetration players and they're good at getting to the rim. We need to find that balance to make sure we stay close to the player, without opening the way to the other side. »
For Jayson Tatum, it's the essence of the playoffs to adapt from one game to the next, and the Heat won this round. “I think we need to be more creative… The playoffs are about adjusting from game to game, and that's what they did. They were supposed to try to disrupt us and make things a little more difficult for us. It's our job to react in real time, but also to make adjustments from match to match. »
