A very nice poster, a very nice potential Conf Final, but that’s in a world where neither Kevin Durant, nor Kyrie Irving, nor Joel Embiid, nor James Harden, nor Giannis Antetokounmpo exist, but that’s another debate. Without scattering too much, we were therefore entitled this night in Boston to a big Eastern classic between two franchises with long teeth, and a few days before the start of the Playoffs Celtics and Heat offered us a match… of Playoffs.
The stats of the big caning of the night is right here
Once is sometimes custom, let’s first pay tribute to the defeated team. A hell of a Boston team, recently deprived of Robert Williams III in the paint for several weeks, but who could count on the return of the Jaylen Brown / Jayson Tatum / Al Horford trio tonight, back in shorts after having dried the Canadian displacement the day before. Celtics who will have played cat and mouse all evening, sometimes cat sometimes mouse but devoured at the end, the runs of each team dictating the tone of the match but the last being rather to put the asset of the badass of South Beach . If we had to remember only one name from this match for the Greens? Don’t trust the game sheet, so don’t trust Jaylen Brown’s big game and a Jayson Tatum who did the minimum taf despite the henchmen sent to his overcoat all evening. Nope, because the one that made us vibrate the most tonight is called… Marcus Smart, real offensive boss by his playmaking and his decision-making even if the address was not there (the stats, definitely…) and incredible defensive poison that definitely deserves to tumble onto the DPOY podium this season. 10 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 steals for MS, an old 3/15 in shooting but, anyway, it was not a game for snipers, and in conclusion green the guarantee for the C’s to be able to count more than ever on the hustle of the soul of this team at the start of the Playoffs.
And hustle it will have been necessary during this match, in which absolutely no easy basket will have been offered, as if each of the two teams present at the TD Center had come to make their defensive ranges for the postseason. A permanent opposition in the racket with a generational duel between Bam Adebayo and Al Horford, the Jay Brothers who struggled outside the pain in the ass Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry, the latter shining with all his ball as often during this kind of games at stake and, where the difference could be made, Florida role players focus on the objective of locking the basket. We think of PJ Tucker obviously, it is better to have him with than against, but we also think of Max Strus, physical finalist of Secret Story but especially a body that has learned to cash, testify to the two charges caused in the money time, by definition at the best of times. A Maxou who also put his shots, it’s useful in basketball, just like Tyler Herro put his and, well, the Heat starts winning again when the future Sixth Man Of the Year is on the field.
A match of runs therefore, but the best time will be for the Heat, very happy in passing to remember that if the size of Kyle Lowry’s shorts hits around the quadruple XL it does not necessarily have to do with his buttocks. Picture this conclusion, so to make it shorter let’s say that Kyle still has a huge package in the sloggy and that, more generally, the Heat and the Celtics seem ready for the Playoffs. Miami keeps its first place, the Celtics chain a second defeat but do not lose their mood so far, the great fight of the East will be able to begin.