Celtics (0-1) at Heat (1-0) ECF Game #2 5/19/22

[Neurotic Guy]

Awesome!  Horford playing with nice rest!!

[jbpats]

Series changing news - truly.

LETS GO CELTICS!

[Vermont Green]

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Celtics‘ Al Horford will play in Game 2 vs. Miami tonight.

Give up White for Smart and Horford?  Yeah, I make that trade!!!

Feeling a whole lot better about the game tonight now.  Miami is good.  They are not going to make anything easy, but we have much better personnel for this game.

Imagine, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, and RWilliams.  Remember how good that line up was back when they all were all healthy and playing together? 

[Vermont Green]

The betting line has already changed from Miami -4.0 to Miami -2.5.  I think Al is worth more than 1.5 points.

[Neurotic Guy]

Really glad.  With only DW out, Cs are near full strength.  Can’t wait to see a Marcus-Rob alley-oop.  Looking forward to seeing some better D on Butler.  Hope not to be annoyed by Herro tonight. 

[sgrogan]

I played around with MIA's big rotation line up results from last game.  It revealed some interesting things.  First, MIA played with 2 bigs for about 31 minutes (+12) and with 1 big for about 17 minutes (-1).  Here is how it broke out:

2 Big Line Ups
Adebayo + Tucker      27 min / +0
Dedmon + Tucker       4 min / +12

1 Big Line Ups
Adebayo                  11 min / -5
Dedmon                    6 min / +4

Miami was +16 with Dedmon on the court for his 11 min (there is some rounding on the minutes) and they were -5 for the other 37 minutes.  There has to be some adjustment that we can make to shore up that leak.  I suspect that Dedmon benefited from being on the court at the times when Butler was hitting shots but still, it we should not be losing ground to this extent when Dedmon is on the court.

Dedmon was +13 from 4:41 of the third until 10:03 of the fourth.

The Celtics scored 1 FG and 7 points total in that span.
The FG was when Theis got inside Dedmon for a putback on a Jaylen missed 3.
Tatum had 3 FT's, one of which was after Dedmon fouled him.
Pritchard had 2 FT's after being fouled by Dedmon.
The Celts were 0-6 from 3, 1-3 otherwise.
Tatum and Brown each had 2 turnovers and Jaylen got blocked at the rim by Butler.

Dedmon scored 4 points on 1-4 from the floor and 2-2 from the line. I think he had 2 offensive and 2 defensive rebounds.

I'm not saying Dedmon was bad, but he didn't drive the +13 in those minutes.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

AL HAS BEEN CLEARED!!!!!!

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OMG

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

must win tonight

sweep in beantown

miami on ropes down 3-1

close out on their floor in 5

LETS DO THIS

[jpotter33]

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Celtics‘ Al Horford will play in Game 2 vs. Miami tonight.

Give up White for Smart and Horford?  Yeah, I make that trade!!!

Feeling a whole lot better about the game tonight now.  Miami is good.  They are not going to make anything easy, but we have much better personnel for this game.

Imagine, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, and RWilliams.  Remember how good that line up was back when they all were all healthy and playing together?

And that’s also with Lowry out and both Strus and Vincent questionable.

If they have their same starting lineup, the matchups will be intriguing. One of Tucker or Butler is going to have to guard Al with the other on Tatum, which is a mismatch we can exploit, and that also likely means that Strus guards Brown, which is another one we can exploit. Hopefully this snaps JB out of his funk.

[Vermont Green]

I played around with MIA's big rotation line up results from last game.  It revealed some interesting things.  First, MIA played with 2 bigs for about 31 minutes (+12) and with 1 big for about 17 minutes (-1).  Here is how it broke out:

2 Big Line Ups
Adebayo + Tucker      27 min / +0
Dedmon + Tucker       4 min / +12

1 Big Line Ups
Adebayo                  11 min / -5
Dedmon                    6 min / +4

Miami was +16 with Dedmon on the court for his 11 min (there is some rounding on the minutes) and they were -5 for the other 37 minutes.  There has to be some adjustment that we can make to shore up that leak.  I suspect that Dedmon benefited from being on the court at the times when Butler was hitting shots but still, it we should not be losing ground to this extent when Dedmon is on the court.

Dedmon was +13 from 4:41 of the third until 10:03 of the fourth.

The Celtics scored 1 FG and 7 points total in that span.
The FG was when Theis got inside Dedmon for a putback on a Jaylen missed 3.
Tatum had 3 FT's, one of which was after Dedmon fouled him.
Pritchard had 2 FT's after being fouled by Dedmon.
The Celts were 0-6 from 3, 1-3 otherwise.
Tatum and Brown each had 2 turnovers and Jaylen got blocked at the rim by Butler.

Dedmon scored 4 points on 1-4 from the floor and 2-2 from the line. I think he had 2 offensive and 2 defensive rebounds.

I'm not saying Dedmon was bad, but he didn't drive the +13 in those minutes.

I agree with all this.  My point is that it was a missed opportunity.  We should be punishing Miami when Dedmon is on the court, not giving up a lead.  No excuse for this and it clearly cost us the game.

We did fine when Adebayo and Tucker were on the court.  Held serve so to speak.  Tucker isn't all that good either but is a threat to hit a 3 so you have to account for him.  Adebayo is actually good.  Dedmon isn't good.  We need to take advantage of Miami when Dedmon is on the court, not the other way around, no matter what Butler or anyone else does.

[Celtic Fan Forever]

Do we have any confirmation on Marcus’s availability other than he’s probable?

[Vermont Green]

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Celtics‘ Al Horford will play in Game 2 vs. Miami tonight.

Give up White for Smart and Horford?  Yeah, I make that trade!!!

Feeling a whole lot better about the game tonight now.  Miami is good.  They are not going to make anything easy, but we have much better personnel for this game.

Imagine, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, and RWilliams.  Remember how good that line up was back when they all were all healthy and playing together?

And that’s also with Lowry out and both Strus and Vincent questionable.

If they have their same starting lineup, the matchups will be intriguing. One of Tucker or Butler is going to have to guard Al with the other on Tatum, which is a mismatch we can exploit, and that also likely means that Strus guards Brown, which is another one we can exploit. Hopefully this snaps JB out of his funk.

If I was MIA, I would have Tucker on Horford.  To me, that is an easy call.  Of course with all the switching, all the match ups change but if they try to have Tucker on Tatum, I would just isolate all game.  They would have to bring a double or Tatum would score 50.  And once they bring a double, it should result in easy shots for others.

Tucker is a decent defender of a big so he would be fine on Horford.  He is undersized at 6'-5" (smaller than Grant Williams) but he should be used to playing bigger players.  I like that Horford will be able to see over him and make passes, allows Al to be another playmaker.

I thought RWill looked better in Game 1 than he has looked since the injury, by far.  I really hope that the first unit "clicks" tonight.  We need them to.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Do we have any confirmation on Marcus’s availability other than he’s probable?

he just texted me

we good   

[SparzWizard]

The betting line has already changed from Miami -4.0 to Miami -2.5.  I think Al is worth more than 1.5 points.

That was the original opener in Game 1 before the injury announcement.

But OK, I'll gladly take the underdog role. It'll just be that much more better when we upset them in Game 2 

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

spread now at -2 miami