Why did the Celtics lose to the Heat? (merged)

[bfrombleacher]

The refs. They might as well have been wearing Heat uniforms.

Gilbert Arenas. For busting Marquis Daniels.

Danny Ainge. Not because he traded Perk but because he completely tossed up the rest of the roster. Erden would've been really useful. From what I see, he could've just done Perk for Jeff Green. I was always so interested in seeing more of Nate+Delonte.

Doc. For keeping Rondo on the floor. I pulled out a lot of my hair in game four as Doc essentially lost it for us.

Doc, again. For being so conservative with his rotations and subsequently riding on the big four and (oh gosh) Big Baby 40 minutes a game. It's only human for him to trust the guys he's been with from the start but this hurts everyone. At the start of the season he said he would devise two different lineups to help the starting lineup deal with aging. I did not see a lot of that.

Wade. I lost all respect for him that I had.

[Moranis]

Miami had the two best players, and arbuably the third best player all in their prime.  That is all you need to know.

[Anomandaris]

Gilbert Arenas. For busting Marquis Daniels.

Danny Ainge. Not because he traded Perk but because he completely tossed up the rest of the roster. Erden would've been really useful. From what I see, he could've just done Perk for Jeff Green. I was always so interested in seeing more of Nate+Delonte.

Erden & Nate have racked up DNP's ever since.
More then anything injuries did us over.

Daniels, Shaq, Jermaine, Kristic, Rondo, Delonte...bad luck & you can't outrun father time for ever.

[EmilioBonilla]

Gilbert Arenas. For busting Marquis Daniels.

Danny Ainge. Not because he traded Perk but because he completely tossed up the rest of the roster. Erden would've been really useful. From what I see, he could've just done Perk for Jeff Green. I was always so interested in seeing more of Nate+Delonte.

Erden & Nate have racked up DNP's ever since.
More then anything injuries did us over.

Daniels, Shaq, Jermaine, Kristic, Rondo, Delonte...bad luck & you can't outrun father time for ever.

Just because Erden and Nate were played much after the trade doesn't mean they weren't useful. Both were useful during the season at different times and Nate came out in last year's playoffs with a dagger that very well won us a game. Both were very serviceable.

[GrandTheftRondo]

Doc. His rotations were just God awful. We went through the whole Troy Murphy battle for what? Looking back it was such a [dang] waste of time and energy. Big Baby was horrible but Doc just REFUSED to sit him and play Jeff more. I just could not understand.

Danny. Not necessarily for trading Perk but for the useless pieces he got in return. Krstic was a non-factor and Jeff Green was a disappointment. He had a few shining moments but NOTHING worth destroying the chemistry of our entire team for. And don't even get me started on relying on a 39 year old 350 pound Shaq to be everything we needed to help us get through the playoffs. It was simply stupid.

K.G. He had ONE good game the entire series. I don't think its a coincidence that that's the ONE game we won. He was a beast in the paint that ONE game. The rest he settled for outside jumpers. Why? How should I know. That just won't get it done against the Miami Heat.


Possibly our medical staff. Honestly....with so many lingering injuries how long before you stop with the "bad luck" excuse and really try to get to the root of the problem? Why do the Celtics have all this "bad luck?" No other team in the NBA has suffered injuries like we have this season. The Lakers have old players. Phoenix has old players. Dallas has oldish players and so on and so forth. The realist in me thinks its something more than "bad luck."

There's more but I'm getting depressed all over again so I'll stop here...

[2short]

injuries
shaq, marquis, jermaine, pierce, rondo, davis?

[timpiker]

This is easy - our "BIG THREE"..........  yeah, right.... bunch of losers that laid down and let LeBum and Wade have their way......

[nickagneta]

Injuries and bad locker room chemistry after the trade.

I think as more and more comes out about what happened in the locker room after the trade the more people will see that the players just hated the trade and felt they were let down by management.

[Marcus13]

Free throws.

Athleticism.

Ainge for not having any Centers of value on the roster.

Jeff Green for playing like Jeff Green.

Big Baby for turning into complete garbage.

Age.

LeBron and Wade for being so much better then anybody on our team.

[wdleehi]

1) Lack of size down low.  In the regular season, when the Celtics had beef, they took advantage of Miami's weakness.  In the playoffs, they had to go small.

2) Rondo's injury

3)  Ineffectiveness of the bench. 

[mc34]

1. Lebron and Wade going into god mode down the stretch multiple times... By my count, I think Lebron drilled 4-5 fadeaway threes at the end of the shot clock in this series, 3 of which were absolute daggers (game 4, the answer to Ray's, and the two at the end of game 5).

2. Weak frontcourt - JO performed admirably but couldn't finish at all because of the wrist. Krstic finally seemed healthy and played well in game 5 (I'd like to see him back next year coming off the bench). KG played one good offensive game, and Baby stunk it up. Tough to win when all four of your big men aren't playing well.

3. Injuries and tired legs - when was the last time you saw KG miss 5 free throws in a game? The injuries go without mentioning

[Jon]

While what many have said is true, I don't understand how anyone can look at the series and think that Rondo's injury wasn't far and away the leading cause of the loss. 

Did they lose Games 1 and 2 with him?  Sure.  But with the way people are looking at this series, you'd think it was the first time in the modern Big Three Era that the Celtics have ever lost a playoff game. 

However, after those two games, despite the refs, despite the size, despite the alleged chemistry issues, the Celtics would've undoubtedly won Game 4 if Rondo had been healthy and likely would've won Game 5.  And if that would've happened, the C's would've been going home up 3-2 and no one would be talking about the other reasons that contributed to the losses. 

[BballTim]

  Wade, for his takedown on Rondo. Even with his great play that was his most valuable contribution to the Heat in that series.

[the_Bird]

* Wade and LeBron really hit their stride at the best possible time.  Hard to defend them when they're hitting some of those impossible shots.

* Celtics began the season with two huge advantages over the Heat, at the PG and C spots.  Rondo's injury took away much of our advantage at the 1.  JO's injury, Shaq's inability to really come back, and the Perk trade killed the latter and severely compromised our interior D.

* Baby was KILLING us.  But, I don't blame Doc for giving him those minutes - there were no other viable options.  Troy Murphy was a wasted roster space, probably because of injury.  Jeff Green...  I just don't get the clamoring to force-feed this kid minutes.  He had one good game in about the last two months, he had done nothing to show he was ready to step up on the bigger stage.  Plus, he's always been mediocre (at best) when asked to play PF; Jeff Green at his best is redundant with Paul Pierce (another reason the trade made no sense).  If Shaq could have played and if JO was 100%, maybe JO could have picked up some minuted behind KG, but as it was we had no other real options at PF.

* General lack of production from the bench (other than Delonte, who finally started hitting his stride).  None of the late signings (Arroyo, Murphy, Pavlovic) had shown anything in the regular season to indicate they belonged in the rotation.  

* General lack of athleticism; lack of young legs.  The only players in the rotation one might describe as "athletic" were the (injured) Rondo and the (ineffective) Green.

Sucks to say, but the better "team" won.

[CoachBo]

A huge deficit in athleticism, despite a trade that exchanged a wildly unathletic center for a more athletic cornerman.

And injuries.