Some series you can run through with a fine-tooth comb and keep coming up with new strategic discoveries. Some series don’t have through lines or threads, each game speaking its own language.
Other series are rather simple. The team that does this and that is the team that wins.
On the surface, these Eastern Conference Finals feel like the latter sort. For three games, Miami both shot better than Boston and had fewer turnovers. For the next two games, Boston made more threes and committed fewer errors. Each contest has coincided with the winning team winning both categories. You shoot well and take care of the ball, you win.
If you’re the HEAT, still a game away from the NBA Finals, that might be comforting. They’ve shot the ball extraordinarily, historically well at times in the postseason, owning three of the best shotmaking games in modern playoff history with two of those coming against Boston, and turnovers have generally not been a consistent issue for them. If all they have to do is two things they can do well, they’ve proven themselves more than capable.
If you’re Boston, there’s solace knowing that you’re probably one of the best volume shooting teams of all time. If the HEAT can knock off the Milwaukee Bucks by shooting 45 percent from deep over the course of five games, the Celtics can certainly hover around 40 percent over four. Like Miami last season, when they were 32-2 on nights they shot 40 percent or better from three, the Celtics are now 38-2 when hitting that mark. With enough talent, defense and discipline to your gameplan, good shooting is effectively a win condition all on its own.
It’s never that simple, even if it feels like it at times. There’s a process to generating good threes just as you don’t accidentally fall into the other team turning the ball over. The latter category is of particular interest because Boston, generally speaking, doesn’t force many turnovers. They had the fifth-lowest opponent turnover percentage in the league this season, with Milwaukee coming in last. Both teams had good reason for it, not requiring many risk-taking endeavors because the bones of their defenses were so strong. The Bucks had their coverage and stuck to it, relying on the lower expected percentages of the shots they allowed to carry the day, while Boston maintained faith in their individual defenders, using switches to flatten out opposing actions and trusting that they could force tough shots one-on-one.
Milwaukee never adjusted in any meaningful way, and they lost – albeit in a fashion that required Giannis Antetokounmpo to miss a few games and for Miami to stage consecutive dramatic fourth-quarter comebacks. The Celtics, meanwhile, have clearly decided that they aren’t going out on their heels.
In Game 1, you could argue that Boston over adjusted to the dominant postseason that Jimmy Butler was having. Yes, Butler was scoring one-on-one, but they were sending help – obvious, expected help – even when it wasn’t necessary. Butler or Bam Adebayo didn’t even have to be in a threatening position. They didn’t even have to have a live dribble. Help came, the right pass was made and HEAT role players capitalized on the shots they knew were coming. Boston’s help came to Miami’s aid more than it ever came close to discombobulating them.
They reversed course in Game 2, holding strong in the faith that they could get stops without compromising or bending the rest of their defense. It earned them another temporary double-digit lead, but Butler and Adebayo attacked the matchups they wanted as Boston’s gambit, putting Robert Williams on Caleb Martin where they thought he could help off into the paint, failed with Martin playing one of the best games of his career. Game 3 was such an avalanche, another incredible shooting night from the HEAT, that not much else mattered. The way Game 4 started, everything was still playing out on Miami’s terms.
Since the second half of Game 4, the rules of engagement have changed – moderately at least. This isn’t just Boston getting hot and Miami coughing the ball up, even if there has been some fumbleitis on their particular symptom list. The Celtics are forcing turnovers because they’re trying to force turnovers. What’s happening is real in part because Boston is playing a bit against type. They’ve adjusted and taken agency in their own fate. These past two games have come with, easily, Miami’s two highest turnover percentages of this entire run.
“Their activity level has gone up the last two games, and that's what you have to expect in a competitive playoff series,” Erik Spoelstra said. “And then we're playing in a crowd quite a bit.”
For good reason, too, because strangely enough these two teams have flipped offensive identities since last year – at least in relation to each other. In the previous seven-game series, Miami struggled mightily to score in the half-court, requiring stops and turnovers to feed their offense and get them playing with some pace. Through five games this year, Boston is scoring just 1.01 points per possession in the half-court off a made HEAT field goal or free throw. Off defensive rebounds or live-ball turnovers – 13 of Miami’s 16 turnovers in Game 5 were steals – they’re scoring 1.29 points per possession. The HEAT’s entire offense resides comfortably within that range, more consistent against a set defense but a bit less explosive after getting stops.
So what is Boston doing? They’re helping without overhelping. They’re shrinking the floor. They’re being opportunistic with their swipes and their pokes and their stunts. They’re playing, in many ways, like Miami – one of the best pass-pilfering and dribble-dispossessing groups you’ll find anywhere.
Take the first possession of Game 5, one that Boston players were crediting with setting an early tone for whatever that is worth to you. Until recently, the Celtics have almost always trusted Horford to defend Adebayo one-on-one, but with Adebayo producing nearly 1.3 points-per-isolation through the first three games of the series – and having scored efficiently against Boston all throughout the regular season – he seems to have earned at least a few shares of respect.
So, on this first possession, Marcus Smart helps. He doesn’t send an early, obvious double. He does what Miami does and waits until the ball is in, or headed towards, a dangerous position, and attacks the dribble.
Celtics Game 5: First Possession Turnover
“Definitely more of a packed paint,” Adebayo said.
Later on, watch how Boston defense this Butler-Adebayo pick-and-roll – Miami’s most-used action, in its various forms, this entire postseason.
Celtics Game 5: Third Quarter Crowd Steal
Smart and Horford concede the switch and a relatively simple entry pass, but Horford is biding his time, waiting for the dribble. As soon as Adebayo puts the ball on the floor, Horford digs in. Adebayo makes the right pass back to Butler for a catch-and-go, but as soon as Butler puts the ball on the floor going downhill, Horford is already recovering in front and Derrick White is poking the ball away, with Jayson Tatum looming as a second layer of the arms-and-hands gauntlet.
“They jammed us up several times in the paint with quick hands, strip-downs, things of that nature,” Spoelstra said. “We have to shore that up. That's two games in a row of that. We do have to be aggressive and then make the appropriate plays with appropriate spacing.”
Frame for frame, it’s almost exactly the sort of turnover that Miami has routinely siphoned out of Boston for the past two years, especially from Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Along those lines here’s a real doozy of a statistic – through five games, Boston already has more pick-six turnovers (14) than they did in last year’s seven-game series (13), with eight of them coming in the past two contests.
A couple of possessions later, we don’t even need video. Look at how Horford is spacing an Adebayo post-up on Brown, the same matchup Adebayo demolished with a spinning dunk in Game 3.
“They pack the paint really well, switching really well and just contesting shots without fouling,” Butler said. “But it's on us to get [Adebayo] in better positions to score the ball, get it to him in transition and stuff like that. When you look at the film and look at how we can be better and getting him into his spots with the ball, with the position and with the time on the clock to score, we'll be better at that.”
The Butler-Adebayo pick-and-roll has been the central tenant of Miami’s offense in this postseason – along with Adebayo’s connections with Lowry and Gabe Vincent – for how it gets Butler going downhill and how it creates advantageous matchups for both players. Boston obviously knows this and they’ve tweaked their coverages to eliminate as much as they can. They give up the switch – Boston switched more in Game 5 than in any game this series – but Butler’s defender stays attached to Adebayo and limits the chance of a hard roll while Adebayo’s initial defender stays flat and waits for Butler to approach – not as deep a drop as Brook Lopez was playing, but not respecting the three-point line, either. Even if Butler eventually gets the White matchup he’s seeking – White has his best game of the series staying in front and staying down on Butler’s fakes – it’s all side-to-side for Miami.
Celtics Game 5: Jimmy-Bam PnR
With Vincent unavailable to pace the early offense and provide a dangerous off-dribble threat against a big playing a few feet off the arc, Butler and Adebayo used a season-high 17 pick-and-rolls in Game 5 – a game in which neither topped 35 minutes due to the late deficit – and the action only produced 0.50 points-per including assist opportunities. Through Game 3 of this series, that number was 1.06 in the postseason. On a related note, Butler’s 10 drives, as tracked by Second Spectrum, were a postseason low.
As you’ve probably noticed in these examples, Boston is primarily helping off Butler while staying within closeout-range – their closeouts were entirely on point, to their credit – on Miami’s other shooters, which is part of the reason why they took a postseason-low 23 attempts from three. Without Vincent’s pull-up threes and with Kyle Lowry struggling in Game 5, the HEAT needed to generate the sort of catch-and-shoot opportunities that have been difficult to come by in this series – part of why Boston’s Shot Quality numbers have been so superior. The Celtics are creating upwards of 30 catch-and-shoot three attempts per 100 possessions, consistent with their league-leading mark in the regular-season. For Miami? Just below 20, well below both the 25 they averaged in the first 82 and the 21 the Atlanta Hawks generated, last among all teams.
If Vincent is available for Game 6, that alleviates some of the possession-to-possession pressure on Miami’s two offensive engines to create everything themselves. Even if he can’t, the good news is that this isn’t anything the HEAT haven’t dealt with before. Milwaukee dared Butler to make jumpers and he crushed them over the top. New York crowded Adebayo in the paint and the HEAT found enough offense – even if that series was mostly about them jamming up the Knicks – to prevail, with Adebayo making the reads he spent all season making when teams brought third and fourth defenders into his airspace.
They can also just be better in everything that they do. At their best, the HEAT never stop moving. Someone is always a step ahead of their defender. Someone is always disappearing from where their defender thinks they should be. Someone is always finding space while everyone else is in exactly the right spot.
“Those guys, they play at an incredible pace,” Tatum said. “They kind of remind me -- kind of the pace they play at is kind of similar to the Warriors. They sprint to their spots. They sprint off screens. They find those pockets. They relocate. You can't blink because they'll relocate, you'll lose a shooter for a three, so you've got to be disciplined, you've got to be sound, you've got to chase those guys because all night they're going to be running. You've got to bring your track shoes.”
In the last six quarters, they haven’t looked like what Tatum is describing. Boston’s switching will do that to anyone, but previously the HEAT were taking their bad possessions – the ones where the ball never gets closer than 15 feet and they’re stuck without a dribble and the shot clock is shrinking – in stride and getting right back to their game. That hasn’t been the case, but it can easily be so again. It’s much more difficult for Boston to be as precise with their help and rotations if you’re making them process the court a half-second faster.
There’s still a yellow flag flying over this series, which is that the Celtics have managed to score 1.18 points-per-possession in the half-court against Miami’s man-to-man coverage. The defense has been buoyed, to this point, by the zone defense limiting the Celtics to 1.05 points per. The zone continued to do its job in Game 5, even without Vincent’s tactile skillset paired with Martin in the top two spots, as it changed the rhythm of the game and slowed the Celtics down, but factoring in Boston’s offensive rebounding that coverage allowed 1.43 points-per across 21 possessions. You can feel the Celtics growing more comfortable the more zone they see, screening the wings, getting into the paint and finding the open threes they want. Even if the zone turns it into more of a make-or-miss game on Boston’s part, too many makes can spell doom when every basket matters.
In Miami’s favor is the fact that outside of their main actions, their younger role players continue to excel. Martin was well on his way to another Caleb Martin Game back in Miami before things went haywire, and he was again decisive with the ball in his hands in Game 5. Boston still doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with Duncan Robinson – his nine assists on Thursday were, unsurprisingly, a career high – as they run him off the line and he makes them pay off the dribble. Haywood Highsmith was a few possessions short of a revelation, managing the top of the zone and closing out on a dime as he continues to give Tatum trouble one-on-one. Another confident game from Highsmith, attacking when Boston helped off of him and otherwise draining three triples on four attempts, could easily turn a result.
And yet we have must return to the simple items. Miami needs to shoot well, or at least shoot better than Boston, and based on how this series is playing out they’re going to have to so on some fairly tough shots – on average, they’re taking more than a full dribble more than Boston before a shot attempt. They’ll need to get back to taking care of the ball, working the crowd that Boston is sending into the paint, while disrupting what Boston wants to get to. They’ll need to look more like the HEAT than the Celtics look like the HEAT.
This series is still going at 3-2 because for the last six quarters, the Celtics have manifested a version of themselves that looks quite a bit like what Miami is always trying to be. For the HEAT to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals, they can’t let anyone play to their own identity better than they do.
Forget about history. Forget about records and what has or hasn’t happened before. All that matters is what is right in front of you. And that’s Game 6 – nothing more than another late-May opportunity to be exactly who they mean to be, rough edges and all that comes with it.