Celtics vs. Heat Game 2: Adjustments Boston Must Make to Steal a Win in Miami

The Boston Celtics are currently preparing for a critical Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat tonight. They need to make sure they study the film from the opening contest and make some serious changes in order to have any shot of snagging a tough road win.

Make and Defend the Three-Point Shot

The Celtics were only 4-of-14 from downtown in Game 1, while getting incredibly lucky that Miami hit just five of their 25 attempts from beyond the arc.

It seemed that about 10 more of those missed Heat threes were completely uncontested and had a great chance of going down, further burying the Celtics beyond the already laughable 93-79 result.  

If Boston wants to pull off this upset, they are going to have to adopt the strategy that many college hoops teams do in the NCAA tournament and start nailing a lot of treys.

They might want to consider getting out to the line and defending it as well, because the Heat will start firing right back.

Get Kevin Garnett Going Early

KG had arguably the best performance of any Boston player in the contest. He scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but there was room to improve.

The Big Ticket was dealing with foul trouble and had five by the time the blowout had concluded.

If coach Doc Rivers can diagram plays to get the ball inside and help Garnett to heat up in the opening minutes, it will open things up sooner than later for the rest of the team.

Lock Down the Miami Supporting Cast

Boston, possibly more than any team in the league, knows that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are going to get their stats.

They need to make sure over-the-hill and inexperienced role players like Shane Battier, Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller and Ronnie Turiaf don’t generate any production.

Those players simply aren’t great, and the Celtics have the defensive ability to expose Miami as nothing more than a two-man team.