Death by a thousand 3’s.
That’s how Game 2 started and ended for the Boston Celtics at home against the Miami Heat in the opening round of the playoffs Wednesday night, where the NBA darlings watched Erik Spoelstra flip their own mathematical tactics back on them.
Heat's historic shooting buries Celtics in Game 2
It’s easy to say Miami had a historic shooting night. They did. More than 62% of the Heat’s points came from 3-pointers, according to ESPN, the highest percentage of shooting from behind-the-arc from any team in playoff history. And yes, it was all without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier.
How did the Celtics let this happen? This is a Boston team who swept Miami in the regular season and led for the entirety of Game 1, at one point by as much as 34.
Because the raining 3’s were largely set off by perimeter screens, for which Boston had no solution.
Tyler Herro made his first 3 midway through the first quarter, an easy bucket over Jaylen Brown, who sagged off the arc, and then another simply over Kristaps Porzingis on the arc. These were cases of loose defense – not good, but easily fixed.
But the next level of Spoelstra’s design was best showcased in the last minute of the first half: Herro, merely feet from the logo, had Derrick White as his primary defender. Bam Adebayo crept up to the arc, set a slightly suspect screen deep, cutting off White and freeing Herro for a 28-footer.
Herro got another 3 off a double screen on the perimeter by Caleb Martin and Adebayo.
In fact, according to ESPN’s Second Spectrum, Herro “scored or assisted on 36 points directly from on-ball screens as the ballhandler, the most in a playoff game by a Heat player since player tracking began in 2013-14. That is also the most in a game in Herro’s career, including regular season or playoffs.”
As the game wore on, the Celtics’ frustration with this screen game showed. Midway through the third quarter, Adebayo dished it to a Brown-guarded Herro, but not without shoulder checking Brown in what – at best – could be considered a physical screen. As Adebayo moved down into the paint, Porzingis and Jrue Holiday put a few hands on him. That gesture carried little weight, as Herro was left wide open in the far corner for every NBA player’s dream 3.
Even when the Celtics anticipated Adebayo’s screens, they didn’t recover quickly enough to the second option, as shown when an Adebayo/Herro screen was caught, but Martin sat open in the corner to sink a 27-footer.
None of this flew below Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla’s radar.
“On many of the screens, they won the battle of the screens. We’ve just got to fight to win those,” he said.
There are a lot of lessons here. Fast ball movement around the perimeter and playing with pace are pieces of the Celtics’ offense that have always been a little unnatural for Tatum and Brown. When the Celtics get tense, they slow down and turn to isolated matchups. It rarely works against the Heat.
Martin isn’t some guy who gets super powers when he plays Boston. He’s just another option after the primary shooter, and he’s a pretty good shooter when defenders sag off him or his teammates screen for him. Adebayo is going to set sketchy screens to get Herro and other shooters open. It’s frustrating, but last night, it was effective.
It’s just unfortunate the Celtics need to be reminded of these lessons when they’re so familiar with the Heat, and in this diminished capacity to boot.