Heat-Celtics Breakdown: Celtics Team Play Ices Heat's Collection of Individuals

The Boston Celtics 88-80 victory over the Miami Heat on opening night was a case of a team beating a collection of individuals.

• Whereas the Celtics are familiar with five-man offensive principals, the Heat simply are not.
• Boston runs offensive sets involving all five players contributing meaningful action on each play, while against the Celtics, Miami often ran simple isolations or high screen/rolls with little movement elsewhere.
• Boston frequently runs weak-side action for profit, while the most weak-side action the Heat would run would be simple wing brush screens for Eddie House when Dwyane Wade or LeBron James would operate at the top.
• Boston frequently zipped the basketball along—25 assists to 32 made baskets—while the Heat had the ball stick way too often—15 assists to 27 made hoops.
• Boston’s core has played together for so long that naturally, the Celtics would be better at anticipating each other’s cuts and movements—though the Celtics did suffer from miscommunications. Miami, however, looked comprised of assorted streetballers selected for a pickup game.
• Boston frequently reversed the ball, while the Heat were content to stay on one side, allowing the Celtics to set their strong-side defense.
• The Celtics balance was on display in the shot attempts of their top six players in terms of minutes—seven, seven, seven, nine, 13 and 11 attempts for Boston’s starting unit, plus Glen Davis. For the Heat, LeBron and Wade attempted half of Miami’s field goal attempts
• With the Celtics fully indoctrinated in the cult of winning basketball, clever play calling willfully executed was the norm. The Heat’s three stars, though, have long played in systems where pounding the ball and having an offense catered to them was the modus operandi. No wonder neither of the Big Three accomplished very much when the ball wasn’t in their hands.
• Miami’s defense was frequently stretched thin by Boston’s play calling. Because all five players were involved and continuity flowed from each set, Miami couldn’t load up on stopping individual plays. The low-light for Miami was a series of Ray Allen baseline screens that flummoxed Dwyane Wade so much, he ran into Joel Anthony, lifted his head in the air in exasperation and trudged his way down the court—before Allen’s three went through the net.
• In short, the Celtics trusted each other and trusted the offense—traits that Miami hasn’t acquired.

On an individual basis, Wade looked as though he hadn’t played basketball in several years. He committed uncharacteristically clumsy turnovers, like dribbling a ball straight off his foot out of bounds, and also uncharacteristically careless turnovers—like lobbing a cross-court pass in transition that was easily intercepted by Garnett.

He missed five lay-ups, committed six turnovers and forced innumerable off-balanced shots that were attempted strictly because he’s Dwyane Wade. It was if he carried instinctual memories of his past individual brilliance but having unlearned all the fundamentals of the game. The result was an awkward, contrived performance that was easily dismissed by the Celtics—4-16 FG, 6 AST, 6 TO, 13 PTS.

Aside from a brief stretch late in the third quarter into the fourth, LeBron James had a quiet 31 points. He committed eight turnovers, some on miscommunications with his teammates, some when he tried to force his unselfishness on plays that never developed and some on awful basketball decisions.

Not surprisingly, LeBron only played reasonably well when the Heat ran quick-hitting high screen/rolls for him while his teammates stood around and watched along the perimeter.

LeBron did knock down an early catch-and-shoot jumper when he bumped to the corner off a screen, and he did knock down some shots as a standstill target for Wade’s penetrations. But the Heat did precious little for LeBron off the ball.

They tried a few cross-screens to get him deep post position, but Paul Pierce was able to push him out to the wing. The two times LeBron did post, he overwhelmed Pierce with his physicality, but missed a subsequent short turnaround, and a timid pump, pivot then fadeaway jumper.

Chris Bosh played exactly as he did with the Raptors—stopping the ball, operating outside of the paint and having zero physical presence in the game—3-11 FG, 2-2 FT, 8 REB, 8 PTS. Aside from a few times he was able to go by Garnett when KG crowded him, and a dunked-in lob after Garnett fronted Bosh coming out to set a screen giving up the entire back side, Bosh simply stationed himself at either elbow, faced up the defense, held the ball, and either launched a rhythmless jumper or forced a drive that led to an ugly shot.

Aside from a halfway decent job by James on Pierce, some patented open court shot-altering defense by James and a Wade gamble and steal on a wing entry pass, neither of the big three played any defense.

The only consistent offense Miami received was on the aforementioned high screen/roll action with James, a handful of drive-and-kicks by Wade and some sharp shooting by Eddie House.

Joel Anthony couldn’t provide any offense—he’s a garbage man and the Celtics never took out their trash. Worse, Anthony was too small to slow down Shaquille O’Neal

Carlos Arroyo couldn’t penetrate, hit open shots, defend or prove that he isn’t totally useless against an elite team like the Celtics. Botched high screen/roll defense by Arroyo and Bosh allowed Rajon Rondo to get going early.

James Jones hit two of his seven open jumpers, a percentage that is much too low. He also committed too many mental defensive mistakes, from fouling Pierce on a three, to giving him too much room in transition, to not rotating effectively.

Eddie House couldn’t stay in front of anyone, hit several big shots and performed his role reasonably well, mainly popping over wing brush screens, catching, then shooting.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas set several effective moving screens that weren’t called, and several ineffective moving screens that were whistled.

Udonis Haslem hit a few leftover shots, did a terrific job of rebounding in pulling down 11 boards and tossed several terrific outlet passes that led to a few stolen points.

The Celtics meanwhile ran their gameplan to full effect. The Celtics funneled screens into help and away from the middle of the floor. Boston limited ball reversal and forced the Heat to play one-side-of-the-court basketball.

Because Miami’s offense was simple and the Celtics prepare so well defensively, their rotations were on-time and on-point.

Shaq’s mass altered a great many shots at the rim, and if Shaq couldn’t change a shot, he’d give a hard foul changing a player’s mind about trying to drive. If he missed his cookies at the rim, and most of his free throws, he was able to throw around Anthony near the basket, and he set earth-shattering screens.

Paul Pierce played LeBron as well as could be expected, even committing two blocking fouls that clearly should’ve been charges after guessing right on LeBron’s moves to the rim. Pierce couldn’t shake free of LeBron’s strong-armed defense, but the Celtics didn’t force him to. Pierce mostly operated within the confines of the offense, hitting big threes in early offense and getting to the line in transition.

Ray Allen frustrated Dwyane Wade with his perpetual motion around screens—7-13 FG, 5-8 3FG. The most encouraging sign for Allen wasn’t his shooting or his solid defense, but the two tough lay-ups he converted at the basket.

Kevin Garnett telegraphed reverse passes, had trouble finishing around the rim and was beaten to a number of rebounds, but his screen defense and his overall defensive range were awesome. Garnett’s ability to show and recover on screens sets the tone for the Celtics defense, taking away a staple of most team’s offenses.

Glen Davis sacrificed his body to draw several charges that will endear himself to Doc Rivers. Davis—6-7 FG, 13 PTS—was also effective both in knocking down mid-range jumpers and in creating his own offense in the post with a nifty turnaround step back jumper over Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

Jermaine O’Neal blocked a shot, missed a pair of rotations and was a general non-entity. Nate Robinson was likewise a non-factor.

Marquise Daniels posted Dwyane Wade for profit among his eight points. Plus, while he’s not as good a defender as Tony Allen, he did a respectable job defending James.

However, as usual, Boston’s performance was predicated on Rajon Rondo.

When Rondo was pushing the pace, attacking the paint and looking for quick-hitting offense, the Celtics were unstoppable. Despite only having four points, Rondo’s court vision and decision making fueled Boston’s offense with 17 assists (17!).

However, Rondo missed both his shots outside the paint, and still walks the ball up when his team is struggling to score, taking too long to get into the Celtics offense.

Boston’s offense tends to stall at times because the Celtics no longer have a dominant scorer and don’t have much of a post threat when Shaq isn’t on the court. In these situations, the Celtics need Rondo to push the ball and create opportunities in early offense, but he would rather walk it up and call out a play.

This overabundance of trust in running the correct offensive play takes away from Rondo’s strength as a playmaker. It also allows good defenses time to set up for Boston’s offense, while early-offense and transition offense are much more difficult to stop because defenses aren’t set. In these situations, the correct offensive play is to push the ball to generate easier scores.

What we saw from Rondo, though, and what we saw from the Celtics is the trust to run complex basketball plays because he knew his team could handle it. What we saw from Miami was a lack of trust, though in fairness, the fact that the Heat played so few minutes together in the preseason does contribute somewhat to Miami’s self-centered gameplan.

What the contest ultimately told viewers is that the Celtics still have a ton of pride, they still gameplan extremely well (even without defensive guru Tom Thibodeau), and they still know how to stonewall one or two-dimensional offenses. And they’ve proven that whatever happens in the regular season, they’ll know how to turn it on come the playoffs.

Miami hasn’t proven anything other than they have the talent to win a ton of regular season games. The Heat’s core of isolation and screen/roll oriented scorers haven’t proven in the past, and they sure didn’t prove against the Celtics that they can play any kind of complicated team offense that would put pressure on an elite defense.

And that isn’t going to change until they face a playoff team that’s packed with talent and has been given time to scout and prepare for the Heat on a game-by-game basis.

The Heat will play better by default, but they’re miles away from being ready to knock off championship competition like the Lakers and Celtics.

Sure the Heat have talent, but talent isn’t enough when matched up with another talented team that plays with discipline, intelligence, awareness, creativity and trust.

The Celtics are already a championship-caliber team. The Heat, as of now, are simply a talented collection of individuals.