The Miami Heat dropped Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics for multiple reasons. The Miami Heat might’ve waited too long to throw a counter punch.
Jimmy Butler needs more help to get it done. They have to play better overall defense.
But more than anything else, they have to adjust their three-point defense. Though the Boston Celtics are making a few tougher shots from range, the variety that sees a man running out at them full tilt, they are making quite a few that are considered to be wide open by NBA standards.
To be fair, it seems that the Miami Heat are taking a bit of the Milwaukee Bucks’ approach. They are trying to make the Celtics beat them with the deep shot.
Well, it worked in Game 2 against the Miami Heat, where the Heat would allow the Celtics to go 20/40 from three-point range.
The Miami Heat go into Saturday’s Game 3 needing a win. If they allow Boston to keep shooting as they are from deep though, it’ll be a tough hill to climb.
That isn’t that entirely shocking though, as Boston would make 20/43 attempts in Game 2 of their last series against the Milwaukee Bucks and 22/55 in their Game 7 victory of that series.
That was another situation where the opposing team dared Boston to beat them from three. Again, Boston did.
Listen, the Celtics have been shooting the ball extremely well against their last two opponents, Milwaukee and these Miami Heat. In fact, they’ve shot the ball from range really well across their entire 13-game playoff run thus far to come in at nearly 40 percent, 37.7 to be precise.
However, a team typically doesn’t explode like that from range that often, in the playoffs nonetheless, and especially when you consider it’s their third time doing it in about eight games. The Miami Heat still have to do their parts though, plastering themselves to their assignments from this point forward but Boston has to help them out.
You can do something about it if you are the Miami Heat by adjusting the type of defense you are playing on them, but Boston has to miss some shots. Either way it goes, you just can’t beat a team if they are going to consistently shoot the ball that efficiently and especially with that type of volume.