The Miami Heat weren’t the favorites coming into their Wednesday night matchup with the Boston Celtics. Favored to beat Miami by about four points, it wasn’t a shocker to see based on both teams’ recent fates.
Though Boston’s sample size would be a little larger, being the best team in the league over the last 25 games or so, the Miami Heat’s four-game sample size from last week could have said just as much about them.
Well, this game was a big test as to how all of that would go. Needing to get a win over a high-quality opponent, though they would dominate the Kings on Monday night, they would need to reaffirm to themselves that they were the team that they thought they were all season long up until the horrendous week that was their last one.
Not only did they drop those aforementioned games but everyone should remember the incident that occurred in the midst that involved Coach Erik Spoelstra, Jimmy Butler, and Udonis Haslem.
The Miami Heat needed to get a good win to try and get back on track. Though they beat Sacramento Monday, a ‘high-quality’ win was needed over Boston.
If they were to still go on to do what they thought they could do as they were securing the conference’s top seed down the stretch of this season, they would need to come into a hostile environment and do something they hadn’t done all year.
Losing the previous two matchups of the year against these Celtics and big, by an average of over 20 points per contest, the Miami Heat had to shake off their own demons and the ones that the Celtics could provide this year.
They would do both on Wednesday in what could be considered the absolute best game of the entire season and that’s across the entire league. At the very least, it was one of the best.
It was back and forth, was defensive and offensive, included major runs by each team, only to see each fight back, while the shotmaking was on full display. It was a marvel to watch.
The thing you definitely could conclude if you were a fan of either team was that seven games or so of this in the playoffs would make for a real tense watch.
That’s for certain. As the Miami Heat would come out victorious, this win should go a long way for them.
Though it still happened, you can officially say that they’re over the drama of the last week and all the hoopla that came with it. With the win in Boston, they might just be ready to finish the business at hand.