The trend of the series between the Celtics and the Heat was beyond the expectations of many people, the first round completed the black eight, and continued to move forward to the Eastern Conference finals of the Heat, facing the better talent and more complete lineup of the Celtics, won two consecutive away games, just when people thought that the Green Army would fight back at home with the Heat, today the Heat once again showed their determination and ability to go to the end.
As soon as the game came up, the Heat played a 5-0 start, the Celtics opened the situation with Tatum's three-pointer, Brown and Horford's long-range shots helped the Celtics overtake the score, after the Heat made simple adjustments, Brown's consecutive mid-range shots continued to help the Green Army score, the Heat directly stopped the Celtics with a wave of three-point rain, Horford's score helped the Celtics break the ground, at the end of the quarter, Martin broke out, and he scored 8 consecutive points to help the Heat get an 8-point advantage in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, White's three-point shot and Tatum's impact basket gave the Celtics hope of a close point difference, but Vincent and Martin's long-range shot and Adebayo's basket score still allowed the Heat to maintain a double-digit advantage, and the Green Army had little effect after calling a timeout, and the continuous misattack allowed the Heat to play a counterattack, and the point difference once reached 20 points, facing a huge point difference, the Celtics did not have much to do, but slowly scored with sporadic breakthroughs, and the Heat's advantage reached 15 points at halftime.
After swapping venues, Smart's 2+1 gave the Celtics a good start, Butler also had 2+1, Strus also had three points, Adebayo's dunk and Vincent's three points continued to pour salt into the wounds of the Green Army, the 20-point difference made the Celtics mentality unbalanced, and the Heat became more and more courageous, and the Heat led by as many as 30 points at the end of the third quarter. The final quarter went into garbage time, and the Heat defeated the Celtics 128-102 to take a 3-0 lead in the series.
Trailing 3-0, the Celtics' journey this season has almost ended early, facing a team with seemingly limited Heat ability and talent, the Celtics have made few adjustments throughout the series, today Mazura made some changes to the starting lineup, White replaced Lowe into the starting lineup, but to no effect, the team's three-point shot still failed to shoot. Faced with a huge disadvantage, Mazura could only pace on the sidelines and there was nothing he could do.
The Celtics are the best offensive team in the league this season, but they rely heavily on their three-point shooting, the second in the league in three-point shooting, and their three-point shooting rate is 37.7% in the regular season, but in the three games of the series, their three-point shooting percentage has not reached their average, and the three-point shooting rate is 34.5%, 28.6%, and 26.2% respectively.
The Celtics are facing a desperate situation today, on the one hand, the lack of coaching ability and coaching ability, but also has a lot to do with the player's play, Tatum's performance in this series has not met people's expectations at all, especially after scoring 51 points in the 76ers series, he made frequent mistakes in key moments in the series with the Heat, even if he had good scoring data, but he could not stand up and lead the team forward at key moments.
Brown, who used to be very stable, even became a drag in this series, shooting less than 20% from three-point range throughout the series! By the time of his contract year, Brown looked more like he was fighting for himself, he wanted to ensure his health, after all, with Rowe around him, who experienced an injury and an injury battle, his form dropped sharply, and he didn't seem to want to get hurt by overworking and thus miss the opportunity to get a big contract.
In addition to the double scout, the role players in the Celtics team did not have any highlights, the whole series looked lifeless, Smart, White, Horford, Brogdon, Gwe, Lowe, these players who were lively and talented in the regular season, seemed to be completely frightened by the momentum of the Heat in this series.
The key to the Heat's victory today is the team's accurate three-point shots, Martin threw in 4, Dunroe made 5 shots, Vincent shot 5, the Heat shot 19 of 35 from three-point range, shooting 54.3%, and in the first three games of the series, the Heat's three-point shooting percentage was 51.6%, 34.3%, 54.3%, respectively, crushing the Green Army in three-pointers.
Butler's hands today are actually average, only 5 of 13 shots, but his deterrent play in the playoffs made the Celtics dare not relax when facing him, and the continuous clipping allowed him to shoot a lot of almost impossible shots. Today, Butler clocked in in the third quarter and scored 16 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals. Today's game was arguably Butler's easiest game in the playoffs.
After Martin became Mr. Key in the last game, another Vincent who lost the draft double gun broke out today, shooting 11 of 14 and 6 of 9 three-pointers, shooting a game-high 29 points, 29 points to create a new career single-game scoring high in Vincent, in the NBA East finals such as basketball, Vincent can set his career record, he has used his ability to make himself firmly established in the NBA.
After getting a 3-0 advantage, the Heat has almost stepped into the finals with one foot, big data predictions for this round of the series were completely overturned by the heat, before the start of the series, big data predicted that the Heat only had a 3% probability of advancing to the finals, and now big data predicts that the probability of the Heat advancing to the finals has reached 89%, and the Heat has made big data a wall grass with its toughness and tenacity.
As Adebayo said after the game today, "People always look down on us, say we're not good enough, say we have so many drafts on the team, we don't have enough talent, and that gives us motivation. "The Heat have beaten too many heavenly heroes along the way, facing the Bucks and Celtics, two teams with top two regular season records, and their current playoff record is 7-1!