Miami Heat: 5 takeaways from Game 5 loss to the Boston Celtics

Everything that could go wrong went wrong for the Miami Heat in Game 5. 

The easy reaction to Friday’s Game 5 dud is to panic immediately. But it’s hard not to be realistic about the correlation between the level of chaos and the outcome of the game. Everything that could have gone wrong for the Miami Heat did, and to the surprise of none, they lost.

Firstly, they couldn’t hit the bottom of the net, from anywhere on the floor. Miami shot just 45 percent from the floor and 19 percent from three-point land. Credit the Celtics’ defense all you’d like, but at the end of the day, the Heat just weren’t hitting the shots they usually do.

Beyond that, the whistles fell largely in favor of Boston on Friday.  Miami was called or 29 fouls with the Celtics receiving just 23 in Game 5. Dragic, their leading scorer, fouled out halfway through the fourth quarter on a questionable offensive foul call at best.

These kinds of things aren’t likely to ever all repeat in Game 6 and beyond. The Miami Heat lost a game that was all but designed or them to fail. How much you fault them for that is up to you.

But don’t lose confidence in this team just yet. They’re still a win away from the NBA Finals.