What is there left to say? How many stories are left to tell about the Boston Celtics playing the Miami HEAT in the playoffs? The Old Guard vs. The New angle was done last year, just as weve already woven tales about conquering career-long foes. Supposedly there are legacies on the line and long-term implications for each team, but those are speculative outlines, narrative projections that exist regardless of the uniforms on the court. The results of the sequel may differ, but the script isnt all that different.
This year, it seems, this can just be about the basketball. It can be about two of the five best, and most aggressive, defenses in the NBA, and how each team is going to manage to score.
Further setup isnt necessary, so lets dive right in.
HOW BOSTON IS GOING TO SCORE
Even after a relatively ugly series against the Philadelphia 76ers, its still a bit of a secret that Boston was not a very good offensive team this year. They were one of eight teams to score less than 100 points per 100 possessions during the regular season, and were the only one of those squads to make the playoffs. Even during a resurgent March and April, the offense was significantly below average.
They are the only team still standing in the playoffs scoring less than a point per possession.
Compliments are due the defense for carrying that offense so far and for so long, but no matter how good the Celtics are defending, their chances depend entirely on the ability to scrape together enough points to win. The manner in which the team attempts to do so is going to be fairly easy to recognize. Even with Brandon Bass in the place of Glen Davis and Kevin Garnett starting at center, not much has changed.
Youll still see Paul Pierce working his way to the right elbow for jumpers. Rajon Rondo will still run plenty of pick-and-pops with Kevin Garnett and Brandon Bass, with Garnett and Bass catching and shooting and the defense playing underneath Rondo at all times. Ray Allen, who has been slightly slowed in the playoffs, is going to run off screens and shoot threes. Rondo, and occasionally Pierce, will penetrate the first level of defense and create chaos, but otherwise you know what youre going to get from the Celtics.
The problem is that much of what we just described was possessions ending in a mid-range jumper, also known as the most inefficient shot in basketball.
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Only Philadelphia and Charlotte took more shots between 15-19 feet this year, only Charlotte and Toronto took more from 16-24 feet, and only three teams took fewer shots within five feet. Between those two perimeter zones, the team hovered around 40 percent shooting. Somehow, Kevin Garnett managed to make about half of his long jumpers, but in general the teams numbers reflected that as a group that relied on a two-point shot that isnt going to go in very often.
Many of those jumpers are open, however, in part because more than 60 percent of Bostons two-pointers were assisted this season. Garnett and Bass are both adept screeners and Rondo finds all sorts of hidden angles to get them the ball in space, in part because defenses usually create a small pocket of space for Rondo to operate in sometimes taking the jumper himself in lieu of giving him the chance to penetrate.
Some teams choose to keep players in the paint until the pass to the open shooter, but that can also be taken to a negative extreme. Neither Garnett nor Bass is a threat to consistently make you pay with a dribble, so as long as the other help defenders are prepared to run out to three-point shooters, theres no reason to simply concede the jumper you typically want the other team taking.
As Miami learned on April 10 and in Game 3 last season Garnett can still punish you with jumpers if you let him get comfortable. The shot must be contested, and if Miami sticks with its starting lineup of the past three games, it will be up to Shane Battier and the Ronny Turiaf-Joel Anthony combo to try to either recover onto those pick-and-poppers, or find the open man left by the help in the paint.
Its easier to contest shots these days because Boston is missing a dynamic part of their offense in Avery Bradley. Bradley was very crafty in attacking the weak spots in defenses when another action occurred far away, and even though he would only make a couple of those cuts every game, he gave the defense something unique to worry about.
Now, Bostons options are limited. Doc Rivers is fantastic at the strategery and schematicisms, but theres no reason to believe that almost 40 percent compared to almost 30 for Miami of Bostons field-goal attempts in the playoffs wont continue to be outside of the paint and inside of the three-point line.
If mid-range jumpers fall, Boston will compete, but even when they do, its important to remember that it wont be a particular exploit of any hole in Miamis defense. Over time, shots that dont have a high likelihood of going in tend not to.
Threes are efficient, though, and as good as the HEAT are at defending the rim in transition, its Pierce, Allen and even Mickael Pietrus trailing the fast-break and spotting up on the wing that need to be points of emphasis. Many a Boston run has been built on those secondary-break triples, and in games that will surely be a grind, it will only take a run or two to earn a victory.
HOW IS MIAMI GOING TO SCORE
Whereas Bostons offense is predictable enough, the HEAT had to switch things up on the fly when Chris Bosh went down. Now, LeBron James is starting at power forward OK, Battier will defend Bass just as he did David West, but who is technically at the four is a semantic argument alongside Turiaf. At least two strong three-point shooters are on the floor at all times, and clearing the paint is an even greater priority.
This leads us to Miamis greatest predicament in this series. Against the Pacers, the HEAT were running almost 50 pick-and-rolls a game, with shooters pulling out defenders so James, Wade and Mario Chalmers could penetrate and attack.
But Indiana had Roy Hibbert. Boston has Kevin Garnett, and by association arguably the best pick-and-roll defense in the league.
Hibbert was not the quickest player moving side-to-side, so Frank Vogel elected to take advantage of his height and shot blocking, having Hibbert play far underneath pick-and-rolls in the paint and wait for the ballhandler. Wade and James both missed little floaters and runners in the paint over the course of the series, but they scored more often than not, and with no pressure being applied off the excellent screens set by Anthony and Turiaf, they also gained a certain degree of comfort, knowing they would be working with space.
On the other hand, no ballhandler in the history of civilization has ever known what it was like to be comfortable running a pick-and-roll at Garnett.
He does a good job of being there early and jumping out, Wade said. He doesnt lay back and let you come to him. He does a good job of making you kind of change directions a little bit. When youre going against Garnett, its very different than going against anybody else. You cant just come right off the pick. You have to stretch it a little bit.
In other words, forget everything you knew about Miamis half-court offense against the Pacers.
You have to switch your mind as much as possible, Wade said. When you get in the game you still have to make that adjustment because you just came off playing six games against a team that played it totally different. Theyre going to play their pick-and-roll schemes totally different than weve seen all playoffs. Itll be something that well adjust to but you got to turn the switch as quick as possible.
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The question is, then, how can Miami still run its pick-and-rolls theyll still have to rely on those actions without Bosh while involving Garnett, whose minutes have jumped to 37 per game in the playoffs, as little as possible?
One option is to have Battier acting as the primary screener, pulling Bass out of the lane and hopefully finding somewhere to spot up, drawing extra defensive attention. But Garnett will still be there, waiting and lurking in the paint, ready to one-man swarm.
What youll see more of is not having Boston big men involved in the primary action at all. This means plenty of Wade-James pick-and-rolls over the course of the series, with James drawing mismatches against the likes of Allen. But youll see more of James, possibly Wade, setting screens than weve seen in any playoff series over the past two seasons.
As we saw against Indiana, James can set a high screen and pop out into space so quickly, he can quickly end up pulling a big man out of the paint, in position to attack off the dribble. Boston will always be aggressive in pick-and-rolls, so having athletes slip screens remains a consistent option.
Anthony and Turiaf dont have to be taken completely out of the offense by Garnetts presence, however. If they arent setting screens, Garnett will be roaming. When Bosh played center against Garnett, he wasnt jogging up to the top of the key and casually setting a screen. Instead, Miami would screen for the screener, giving Bosh a few steps on Garnett, pulling Garnett out of the paint and saving the ballhandler from the blitz.
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For all of this to work, shooters have to make shots. As much as Boston relies on mid-range jumpers, Miami getting spot-up threes off screens to fall, and having the floor spaced in the future, will define each and every game. Wade and James can seemingly win via spectacular offense on their own, but the less space they have, the less efficient they can be.
There are other dynamics to what the HEAT will do. Because Boston relies on ball movement to create shots, they also tend to turn the ball over at a higher rate than many teams, and turnovers mean transition opportunities. To manage this, Boston hardly crashes the offensive glass at all other than Rondo and the team grabbed the fewest offensive boards of any team in the league, electing instead to stay back on defense and prevent relief baskets. Miami will make a number of big runs simply because of Boston turnovers, and those runs will likely coincide with the game they win by the largest margin, but that offense will never be dependably sustainable.
Posting Wade and James up might be, though. James will get cross-screens and cut through the lane before posting up while Wade will get position whenever a mismatch with Rondo or, say, Keyon Dooling develops, just as he did whenever he was matched up with Leandro Barbosa. As long as its not James on Pierce, youll see Miamis scorers in the post.
They just cant settle for jumpers. Boston takes those jumpers because they have to, but Miami is capable of more. As simplistic as it sounds, thats what this series will boil down to. Can Miami move Garnett around in pick-and-rolls? Can Wade and James continue to assert themselves, on and off the ball, with remarkable efficiency? Can Boston make enough mid-range jumpers to win four games?
Well see, but whatever happens, at least it will be about the basketball. Not words.
Statistical support for this article provided by NBA.com and Synergy Sports.
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