Boston owned the first half with a sharp offense.
Miami played defense for the first time since their plane landed in Boston in the second half and tied it up.
But with everything on the line at the end of the game and in overtime it came down to execution, and the veteran Celtics were better at it. Not a lot — it was 4-2 in overtime. It was grinding, not pretty. But that counts just the same. Boston won 93-91 and the Eastern Conference finals are tied 2-2 heading back to Miami.
Boston won this with one half of hot offense and four quarters and an overtime of defense. What they have done amazingly well is cut off the transition points of Miami — they have taken away the easy, showtime buckets that fuel the Heat. Old legs? Not even close. Boston has looked more spry the last two games.
That started from the opening minutes of Game 5. Boston walked on the court attacking, Rajon Rondo was getting the lane, carving up the Heat defense with passes and shots. He has been amazing this series, and he finished this game with 15 points and 15 assists. Boston went on 10-0 run early and that had team up 14. Boston got a dozen first quarter points from Paul Pierce, shot 59 percent and put 34 points up in the first 12 minutes. Boston had seven three pointers in the first half. That carried through the half as Boston was up 14 and had 61 points at the break.
Then Miami started playing intense defense in the second half, particularly trapping Rondo and taking the ball out of his hands. Behind that the Heat’s rotations were sharper and they started to challenge whoever had the ball. Miami played far more physical ball. Boston scored just 12 points in the third quarter. Boston had 16 in the fourth.
Miami also started to really take advantage of every time Kevin Garnett sat down. They attacked and without KG’s defensive leadership out there Boston could not stop LeBron James (29 points) or the Heat from getting to the rim.
But what Boston did late was make stops and one more shot — this game was tied 81-81 with five minutes remaining in regulation. Both teams were pushing, clawing and getting fouls. Some interesting fouls. Some questionable fouls. Both Pierce and LeBron fouled out in overtime and there were questionable calls all night both ways.
In the end, Boston played good defense and made one more shot.
Miami had its looks. But with the final shot in regulation and overtime Miami didn’t execute as well as the Boston defense.
In regulation what coach Eric Spoelstra drew up… well he said after the game it fell apart, what it became was a LeBron James isolation where when the triple-team came he tried to pass out of it and… it was just not good.
“It was another multi-layer thing to try to get LeBron on the run,” Spoelstra said. “The play broke down a little bit, so he had to put the ball on the floor and make a play. He had the right idea. I think (Haslem) was open for a count there in the corner. But you have to pass over a 7-foot-6 guy, so it wasn’t really a clean pass.”
Then at the end of overtime, with 14 seconds to go and Miami down 2, the Heat actually ran a play to get a switch so Marquis Daniels was on Wade, which led to a clean look at a step back three as time ran out. Clean but not a good shot. Thing is, Wade shot 26.8 percent from three this season, 27.8 percent in the playoffs. Him taking a twisting three is not good execution, it is not high percentage shot. And if you go earlier you might get an offensive rebound. Miami executed neither.
And so the series is tied 2-2. Game 5 is going to be when the Heat figure out how to take a step forward or they will fall short — Boston is a veteran team they are going to defend, they are going to execute. Just like they did in Game 3 and 4.
If Chris Bosh is back in the lineup can Miami execute better? Either way they had better. The playoffs are about growth and if Miami doesn’t do it before Game 5 this series could end quickly.
