The Miami Heat stole Game 1 from the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in Boston with Playoff Jimmy Butler making another star appearance.
Starting the Eastern Conference Finals on the road in Boston, as the Miami Heat have in every series to this point as the No. 8 seed, Playoff Jimmy Butler showed up and led his team to a massive 123-116 upset victory on the road in Game 1, disrupting the Celtics’ home-court advantage.
The Celtics were able to mount a huge lead in the second quarter after going on a monster run. That seemed to put Boston in control of this game, but the third quarter changed the complexion as the defense fell apart, giving up 46 points in the quarter alone to Miami. They fought back to take the lead and controlled the action until crunchtime.
In the final moments of the fourth quarter, Jayson Tatum made costly errors with two double-dribble violations, giving Butler and the Heat a chance to close it out. After the second, Butler nailed an incredible 3-point attempt to push the lead to 10, essentially pushing the Heat to victory.
How did Miami pull off the Game 1 upset, though? Let’s take a look.
Miami Heat: 3 reasons behind upsetting Celtics in Game 1
3. Max Strus
Max Strus ended up with 15 points on 60 percent shooting from the floor to go with 3 rebounds in this game as well. A lot of what he did in this game cannot be shown in the box score, however, even with a solid line.
When the Heat made their run back into the game in the third quarter, Strus was a big help. He sunk multiple 3-point attempts in the quarter and came up huge when Miami needed to respond to the Celtics jumping out to their lead. He’s been a great floor-spacer throughout the postseason, and Game 1 was no different.
2. Jimmy Butler
Butler ended up with 34 points on 48 percent shooting from the floor along with seven assists, six rebounds and six steals in the Heat’s win. He was unstoppable in this game as he continued to be one of the best posteason perfomer’s this year, and perhaps among some other historic runs too.
Playoff Jimmy was the best player on the court in this game, but especially so in the second half. His late 3-point make late in the shot clock and with the offense breaking down was a back-breaker for Boston. Throughout, though, he was able to cut to the bucket to draw in defenders and find the Heat’s open shooters in 3-point range.
1. Heat’s 3-point shooting overall
Bam Adebayo could’ve been the third individual player on this list, but his defense kept him off as he let Robert Williams III have his way in the first half. So it only made sense to look at the Heat shooting 51 percent from 3-point range in this game as a huge difference-maker.
It was Miami’s effectiveness and efficiency from deep in the third quarter that led to the team exploding in the period and taking the lead from the Celtics. Everyone on the Heat showed off thier range too. Kevin Love shot 66 percent while Gabe Vincent and Kyle Lowry each shot 60 percent. Oddly enough, Duncan Robinson was just about the only Heat player who wasn’t dialed-in from 3-point land.