Today's Eastern Conference finals officially begin, the Celtics are sitting at home to face the Heat, and the two teams are also old rivals, and they met in the Eastern Conference final last season. There has been little change in the starting line-up on either side.
In the first quarter of the game, Butler and Adebayo were full of firepower, and the Celtics side also blossomed more, and the scores of the two teams alternately rose, and you played very fiercely. The game soon entered its first official suspension. After this timeout, the two sides successively replaced some of the benches, the Heat's Martin and the Green Army's Brog boarded, also very active, the two sides continued the hard tug-of-war, Martin steal and counterattack for a layup, the game entered the second official timeout. The Celtics led by two points at 30-28 at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the two sides rotated the lineup stage, Lowry and Adebayor led the team, the elder Lowry hit two consecutive three-pointers to overtake and widen the point gap, but the Green Army quickly stabilized the situation, chasing 39 draws, but Lowry felt hot and scored 5 consecutive points, Lowe's 2+1 hit, Tatum broke through to make a foul, entered the official timeout, and then Butler returned. But Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined to extend their lead to five points, and Smart assisted on a bottom-corner Horford three-point shot to stop the Celtics' 8-0 mini-climax. But after the timeout, the momentum of the Green Army has risen, leading to double digits, and at the key moment, Butler has to stand up and score a strong 2+1 to stop the bleeding. At halftime, the Heat trailed by nine points at 57-66.
In the second half, the situation changed abruptly, and the Heat started with a 15-6 run to narrow the gap to 2 points, but Celtics coach Mazura held his breath and did not call a timeout for the players to solve themselves, Brown shot a three-point shot to stop the bleeding, but Adebayo and Butler scored consecutive points to help the team complete the comeback, and the game entered an official timeout after 78 draws. But after a timeout, the Heat chased after the victory, Butler found the offensive feel in the quarter, helped the Heat lead to a maximum of 9 points, and the entire third quarter Heat blasted a 46-25 attack wave, the end of the third quarter to win by 12 points.
The Greenshirts came up with a small 7-0 climax early in the final quarter to narrow the gap to 5 points, and Spall immediately called a timeout when he saw that the momentum was not right. Back in the game, both teams took the tiebreaker ahead of schedule, and the two sides entered a white-hot battle, with Butler and Adebayo still producing steadily, always maintaining a lead in the score. Tatum scored on consecutive foul free throws, and one man struggled to hold on. The Heat took the initiative to call a timeout, but after that, the two teams made crazy mistakes, hit iron, and did not score for a minute and a half, and the Green Army also called a timeout. Martin hit a three-point shot in the bottom corner, Tatum made two fatal step errors in a row, and then Butler hit another 3-pointer to kill the game completely.
In the end, the Celtics lost 123-116 at home to the Heat, and trailed 1-0 in the series. Let's take a look at the specific performance of the players!
Defeating Tatum, Butler slashed 35+5+7+6
Butler is definitely the league's number one tough guy in this year's playoffs, and today against Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Butler is one against two.
In the first quarter, he played 12 minutes, shooting 5 of 9, 2 of 2 free throws, cutting 12 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals, which can be said to be both offensive and defensive. He contributed 15 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists in the first half.
In the third quarter, he scored and passed the ball, scoring 12 points and 3 assists in a single quarter, helping the team win by 21 points!
He didn't rest for a minute in the fourth quarter, playing from start to finish, scoring consecutive strong shots to hold the team's lead. In addition to attacking, his defense at key moments is sharper, accurately predicting successive steals. In the final moments, he hit a strong three-point shot to seal the victory.
In the whole game, Butler played 43 minutes, shooting 12 of 25, 2 of 4 three-pointers, 9 of 10 free throws, and 35 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists and 6 steals, leading the team to the first place on the road! Regardless of the stats or the result, Tatum was beaten.
According to statistics, Butler has scored at least 10 points in the first quarter of 7 times in the playoffs this season, the most in the league!
Adebayo is unusually tough
As the first soft egg in the East, Adebayo played exceptionally tough today against Horford and Lowe's two interior linemen.
He played 18 minutes in the first half, shooting 4-of-6 from the field, 1-of-2 from the free throw line, and recorded 9 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists, with a plus/minus of +1. He also contributed nine points in the third quarter, teaming up with Butler to help the Heat complete the comeback.
In this game, Adebayo played 37 minutes, shooting 9-of-13 from the field, cutting down 20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 steal.
The Heat backup is born
In addition to starters, 37-year-old veterans Lowry and Martin have also become surprise players on the Heat's bench.
In the second quarter, he made three three-pointers in a single quarter, played 16 minutes in the half, shot 5-of-8 from the field, 3-of-4 from three-point range, and cut down 13 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block.
Lowry had 15 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.
Martin scored a number of difficult layups in the game, and his three-point shot from the bottom corner in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter gave his team a seven-point lead, setting the tone for victory.
In this game, he cut down 15 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
Double Tanhua reduced to empty chopping
Tatum and Jaylen Brown were both in good shape this game, but they fell short and suffered a big comeback.
Tatum's 3 turnovers buried the team
Just scoring 51 points in the last round, Tatum continued his hot form, playing 21 minutes in the first half, shooting 7 of 13, 1 of 3 from three-point range and 3 of 3 from the free throw line to score a half-high 18 points plus 5 rebounds and 1 assist, plus or minus +10.
In the fourth quarter, when the Heat extended their lead, Tatum made back-to-back free throws to help the team bite the score. However, at the crucial moment, Tatum's pass was first tackled by Butler, and then two steps in a row, and three fatal errors completely turned the team's hopes around.
In the game, Tatum played 41 minutes, shooting 9-of-17 from the field, 1-of-3 from three-point range, 11-of-11 from the free throw line, and had 30 points, 7 rebounds and 1 assist.
Brown 22+9+5 stable output
In the first half, Jaylen Brown was 5 of 10, 0 of 1 from three-point range, 1 of 1 from the free throw line, and had 11 points, 5 boards and 1 assist, plus or minus +11.
He scored another 11 points in the second half, but a few consecutive three-point shots in the final quarter were very demoralizing. In this game, Brown played 38 minutes, shooting 10-of-21 from the field, 1-of-6 from three-pointers, and 1-of-2 from the free throw line, scoring 22 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists.