It is funny, as I was watching the Lakers team last night, it seemed to me that it was a pretty good reflection of what we are going to be up against with Miami. The Lakers have their two stars, LeBron and LeBrow, a wing and a big, and then pretty much a bunch of journeymen around them. Miami has Butler and Adebayo, their wing and big, and then mostly journeymen. It got me wondering, if I was going to start a team today, for a playoff series starting today, would I rather have LeBron and Davis or Butler and Adebayo. I will just let that linger.
As to this series, people seem to be cynical about any praise for Butler, taking it as some kind of slight against Tatum. I don't get that. Tatum is great, and probably has more greatness ahead of him to come than Butler has. But Butler has carried this very limited Miami team on his back to this point in the playoffs, in a way that I don't think Tatum could, right now, at this point in his career. Tatum certainly did have a game for the ages in game 7, but game in and game out, he has not needed to do that in the same way that Butler has needed to carry MIA.
But this series is not Tatum vs. Butler. I hope Tatum is not looking at it that way. I am pretty sure Butler is not looking at it that way. Tatum and Butler will likely be the two best players in the series and in the end will probably continue to be pretty equal as the stats above have shown. We win if our supporting cast of proven veterans outplay their supporting cast of journeymen. Tatum should be thinking how can I make my team better than Butler's team. He does not need to beat Jimmy Butler.
I am too superstitious for flat out predictions involving my home teams but I will say that I thought BOS was a better team foundationally than PHI and I think PHI is a better team than MIA. You do the math. But these differences are not huge. The Celtics still need to go out and take this.
Topic: Heat (0-0) at Celtics (0-0) ECF Game #1 5/17/23 (Read 33427 times)