HEAT Vs. Celtics IV Preview: Once More, With Feeling

It had to be this way, didn’t it?

No matter how many different paths these teams take, no matter how many roster spots change or how many injuries occur, the Miami HEAT and Boston Celtics appear destined to meet. Certain events occur in every dimension across every timeline.

They haven’t quite met under these circumstances before. Yes, Miami has been the significant underdog, which we’ll get to in a minute, but never has one of the main stars been, presumably until further information comes in, knocked out of the series before it even began. Kemba Walker and Gordon Hayward weren’t right in 2020. Kyle Lowry and Tyler Herro weren’t right in 2022, with Herro missing all of 2023. Jimmy Butler and Jayson Tatum each dealt with ankle injuries last year. All the usual knicks, scrapes, bruises and bumps that come with deep playoff runs have come. This is the first time for the First Round, though, and certainly the first time someone as prolific as Butler is expected to be entirely absent from proceedings.

By all measurements, the Celtics are coming off one of the best regular seasons ever. They won 64 games and could have won more had they anything to play for in the final month of the season as they finished 14 games up on the No. 2 seed. Their +11.6 Net Rating is the fourth best of all time. While we don’t have the time to manually comb through every historical matchup, the +9.9 differential between Boston and Miami’s (+1.8) Net Ratings would likely make for the largest statistical upset in NBA history were it to happen, more than double the +3.9 difference between Milwaukee and Miami in the First Round last year (Boston was +7.2 over Miami in the Conference Finals). This is a very steep hill to climb, particularly without one of the greatest playoff players of the past five years in tow and no word on whether or when Terry Rozier might return.

There does exist a Golden Path for Miami to follow, to be sure, but it is a most narrow one.

Let’s begin with Miami’s offense, which will assuredly look more different than it ever has against the Celtics this time of year. The HEAT are not a better offensive team without Butler. Not even close. They were +7.0 points per 100 possessions better offensively with Butler on the court this season, not only the highest differential on the team but one of the highest in the entire league. Some of that is due to Butler playing a significant chunk of his minutes alongside Kevin Love’s five-out spacing with bench units that juiced the HEAT’s scoring potential more than any other – Love is, of course, still available for that alignment – but Butler is effectively the HEAT’s most prolific driver, their most effective one-on-one player, the best at turning opportunistic defense into offense and the best at getting to the line for easy ones. Outside of Butler, only Bam Adebayo (seven a game) averaged more than one free-throw in Boston’s sweep of the season series. For a team that struggles to generate anything easy on that end, Butler was their most direct path to it.

That said, there has been long been a simplification effect whenever Butler, who has generally missed 25 games a season with Miami, is out. The spacing issues that crop up with him and Bam Adebayo on the court together – issues that have been exacerbated in recent months with teams loading up the strong-side on their touches – vanish as Miami’s lineups shift to a more traditional spread look, either for empty corner sets, pick-and-rolls right down the middle or handoffs on the wings. While it can be overstated at times, they do play a bit faster with those lineups, with a little more natural flow to their side-to-side, drive-and-kick intentions. What they lose in offensive floor they can artificially create in ceiling by increasing their three-point volume. Butler gets them out of jams, particularly in late-game situations when proceedings slow to a crawl, but there remains potential for significant bursts. Coupled with winning the possession game – keeping turnovers down while gaining a few opportunities on the offensive glass – that can be enough to take a lead and stiff arm the rest of the way.

Take Miami February 11 loss without Butler, for example. While the Celtics led for most of that one, the HEAT only lost by four despite their own 30 percent shooting from three because they turned the ball over just seven times and collected 14 offensive boards, taking 16 more shots from the field than Boston with equivalent free-throw attempts. That’s a recipe that keeps you in the conversation until clutch minutes, where Boston has been statistically great this season (+15.4 per 100 in the clutch compared to -13.5 for Miami) but historically and circumstantially suspect.

There’s also a difference between playing a team while shorthanded on a random February night and them having time to prepare for exactly how you look without your star, especially with the lack of Rozier’s additional playmaking capabilities putting even more of a burden on the Tyler Herro-Bam Adebayo pick-and-roll. Boston has defensive options other teams can’t even think to pull off. How they choose to open on Sunday could define how the rest of the series plays out.

One thing Herro noted about the hand injury which kept him out of last season’s run was that he missed the opportunity to play against a bunch of teams that play a ton of drop coverage – all that conceded space creating opportunities for dribble shooters like Herro – with the exception being Boston, a heavy switch team. With Kristaps Porzingis now a starter the Celtics, much like Miami with what Erik Spoelstra has asked of Adebayo, have shifted to more drop coverage themselves, but the overall scheme is not comparable to the consistent, static, to-expectations drop of a team like Milwaukee last year. Porzingis will stay back and trust Jrue Holiday (another new addition) and Derrick White to fight over the top of screens, help defenders pulling in to swipe at dribbles as appropriate, and Boston’s No. 2 ranked defense is quite good in those looks, Porzingis allowing 0.92 points-per to ballhandlers, comparable to Brook Lopez and Jaren Jackson Jr. Herro attempted 9.6 pullup jumpers per 100 possessions against Boston this year, with an effective field-goal percentage of 61, versus 7.5 against all other teams. Miami generally scored well against Boston this season, but their Shot Quality also took a significant dip, according to Second Spectrum tracking data.

Where Boston changes things up is by not putting Porzingis on Adebayo at all, much like they would previously do with Robert Williams III, placing their center on a Caleb Martin or Jaime Jaquez Jr. while a smaller player accompanies Adebayo up to the action where Boston can switch.

Here’s Jrue Holiday on Adebayo during that February 11 game without Butler.

And here’s Tatum on Adebayo in that same game on a deciding fourth quarter possessions, Porzingis roaming the back line.

Combined with Boston’s ability to switch just about any off-ball action, one-through-four, this is a look that could be a fly in the ointment. There are a few counters. The more creative ones involve multi-step actions, the player Porzingis is defending initiating offense that can transition into a second look, Porzingis unable to camp on the weakside block. Spoelstra exhausts all options, and he tends to come up with plenty. Realistically, though, Porzingis’ assignment is going to have to hit shots whether it’s Martin, Jaquez Jr., Haywood Highsmith, Delon Wright or anyone else. Miami flat out doesn’t win the previous series without Martin true-shooting 71.2 percent on an 18 percent usage rate, including 84 points on 54 combined shots, 14-of-27 from three, in Miami’s four wins. Martin may have had Boston’s curiosity before. Now he should fully have their attention.

Adebayo also has some say in all of this. He’s never been more comfortable attacking one-on-one in his career, all sorts of pivots and fakes at his disposal to create a jumper when necessary. If Boston is going to defend him with smaller players, he can take them into the post or work from the elbows on the switch. The question is how Boston defends him. Many teams have doubled Adebayo in the post – some early, some late, some showing soft doubles that wait behind the first defender as a second layer – but that hasn’t typically been Boston’s predilection, opting mostly to single cover Adebayo, make him a scorer and limit Miami’s catch-and-shoot options. While Adebayo has had his moments against both Porzingis and Al Horford, the suspicion is that the single coverage will continue until a change is forced.

One wild card for Miami is Duncan Robinson (questionable for Sunday), who has been limited with a back injury of late, not playing against Philadelphia on Tuesday despite being available and only appearing for 12 minutes against Chicago. We can talk schemes and coverages all we want, the fact remains that a major factor in Miami’s upsets last season against both Milwaukee and Boston was incredible shooting. The HEAT shot 48 percent from three on just 30 attempts – keep an eye on their volume in Game 1 – in their four wins. A repeat of that team-wide performance would surely be helpful, but Robinson is more than just a make-or-miss player. Outside of Butler and Adebayo in the post, nobody tilts defenses quite like Robinson. His on-the-move stylings can punish drop coverage or create windows of downhill life in those pockets of time where one switch defender hands off to the next.

Kevin Love’s pick-and-pop work will be crucial, as will his ability to work in the post – Chicago went small on Friday and Love immediately crushed those lineups – against switching groups. Haywood Highsmith’s floater has become a solid weapon off the bounce, and his shooting will be a necessity. The two swing players might be the youngsters, Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic playing their first serious minutes in the postseason style. Jovic has the passing touch to help Adebayo and Love take advantage of good position against smaller players, his grab-and-go speed can keep Miami out of the halfcourt and he has the height to get clean looks off against Boston’s impressive closeout work. Jaquez Jr.’s usage rate hit 24 percent against Chicago and there’s a good chance that continues, Boston’s initial lack of help giving him the opportunity to attack shoulders first while his cutting offering potential for the sort of relief baskets that keep the train on the tracks. Boston will no doubt test his catch-and-shoot ability. As much as both players have earned degrees of trust from Spoelstra, you never know until you know when it comes to the playoffs.

It will surely help Miami if they can get out of the halfcourt a bit, but Boston has the lowest turnover rate in the league and is either first or second in most transition defense categories, both in frequency and efficiency allowed. It’ll help if the HEAT’s gap-shrinking scheme can create some pick-six opportunities, but most of the players who have had success doing that to Boston in the past are either unavailable or no longer on the roster. The exception there being Highsmith, who might secretly be Miami’s most important player in this series given how much time he’ll be defending either Tatum or Brown.

We may have seen a preview of Miami’s defensive approach on Friday when Adebayo drew the DeMar DeRozan assignment at tipoff, the HEAT’s gambit paying off as Nikola Vucevic wasn’t able to make smaller defenders pay. The HEAT have used Adebayo on Jaylen Brown like this before. Even in smaller doses, it can disrupt an offense’s rhythm for a handful of possessions. Porzingis has been good against mismatches this season, but Jovic has the size and length to contest his shooting. Of course Boston has far, far more dynamic supporting players – if Adebayo is on Brown, there’s always Tatum elsewhere – and if Adebayo isn’t near the paint to help that can be trouble for other one-on-one matchups.

Miami did not play much zone against Boston this year, giving up 21 points on 15 possessions across three games, after using it to solid effect in the previous Conference Finals, 105 possessions at 0.89 points-allowed-per. Maybe the HEAT were saving those looks for the playoffs, but Boston, almost always with five shooters on the floor, is one of the tougher teams to zone these days. Where before Robert Williams III might have jammed up the spacing a bit, now Boston has Porzingis – with Horford typically making smart plays against zone – to fill the middle of the floor to either hit shorter jumpers or pull defenders off other shooters.

There’s also the matter of Boston shooting 38.8 percent from three on 42.5 attempts a night this season, one of the most prolific shooting seasons of all time. Granted, the same could have been said about Boston headed into the same series last year before they shot 30.3 percent across seven games. Boston’s greatest strength gives them incredible offensive upside – they shot 22-of-40 from three in a 33-point win at Miami on January 25 – but there is a natural variance in their game. All it takes is a cold night or two to give the HEAT a little life. If Boston has a weakness outside of late-game offense, it’s that they’ll sometimes forgo drives, eschewing higher percentage looks for greater value. Cold nights may also be necessary. Boston is 36-1 this season when shooting at least 40 percent from three, 50-5 when shooting at least 35 percent and 14-13 at 34 percent or worse.

So what do wins for Miami look like in this series? Their winning formula isn’t too different from normal, they just have to check more boxes. Plenty of pressure on Herro and Adebayo, and they’ll have to deliver offensively, not just scoring but consistently creating and exploiting advantages within the defense. We’ll see how Boston changes their coverages based on how they perform. Winning Love’s minutes will help, that spacing offering Miami the best opportunities to attack Boston’s deeper rotation defenders. Jovic and Jaquez Jr. will have to make quick adjustments to postseason basketball, real trials by fire, with Jovic shooting well and Jaquez Jr. working his way into the paint. Martin and Highsmith will have their spot-up opportunities, and Martin may have to rescue some possessions up against the shot clock. Miami will be at its best playing fast – not too fast, just aggressive – while keeping the game slow, pushing to create early and secondary transition chances while slowing Boston down with pressure. Wright and Highsmith will need to be everywhere defensively. The Celtics will have to miss some shots. Miami will have to take care of the ball and win in the clutch. It doesn’t all have to happen always, but enough of it will have to line up on the same nights.

The odds are against Miami, this Boston group likely the best Eastern Conference team they’ve played in the past five years and rivaling Denver last season, but they have a chance. Their path to success may be narrow, but it isn’t hidden. They know this matchup, they know these players. They’ve done this before, even if not quite like this.

And we know who the HEAT are at this point when it comes to the playoffs. This is not a group that needs it to be easy. The more you take from them, the more powerful they become, if only for the right night. This will be their greatest challenge yet, but they’ll still force Boston to beat them. There’s no other team more likely to find a way to ice skate uphill.