The Miami Heat took Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals from the Boston Celtics in dominant fashion. In what was a tale of two halves, the Heat made their first step towards advancing in the NBA playoffs by winning 118-107.
After a tough first half, the Heat outscored the Celtics 39-14 in the third quarter. The Celtics out-shot and out-rebounded the Heat in the first half. Then, Miami came firing out of the second-half gate with newfound intensity on both sides of the floor. They began the third quarter down by eight points and ended it up by 17. Although the Celtics were within single digits in the fourth quarter, the Heat took the victory.
The Heat completely owned the Celtics in the third quarter, flipping the game on its head and giving them the series advantage in front of their home crowd. The rematch of the 2020 ECF started the same way as the original series, with Miami coming out on top.
3 craziest things from Heat's ridiculous 3rd-quarter barrage in Game 1 win over Celtics
3. Completely shutting down Jayson Tatum
In the first half, Jayson Tatum looked unstoppable. He scored 21 points and made nine of his 14 shots from the field to go along with five assists and four rebounds.
Once the second half started, Tatum looked like a player who had used up all of his XP points and was simply abysmal. He missed all of his attempts from the field and scored just five points while committing a whopping six turnovers, a career-high for a single quarter. The Celtics relied on their superstar to get them going on offense and he failed to do so in the third period.
Without Al Horford and Marcus Smart, Tatum and Jaylen Brown had a much tougher time scoring. They badly missed their playmaking and shooting abilities. The Celtics initially overcome their absences but collapsed soon after.
2. The Heat's free throws matched the Celtics' whole offense
Miami made the Celtics look like a college team after halftime. Just the fact that they outscored Boston by 25 points doesn't show the whole picture.
In the third quarter, the Heat scored 14 points from the free-throw line (on 17 attempts). That doesn't just match the Celtics' number of points in the quarter but exceeded their field-goal percentage (13.3 percent).
The Heat turned up the intensity and forced the Celtics into turnovers and Boston couldn't contain the Heat's offense at all. They cut off the Celtics' supply of buckets close to the rim, which they used to thrive in the first half. The Celtics could barely even get shots up against the Heat's thirdd-quarter defense.
1. Jimmy Butler took over
Butler was very solid in the first half. When the second half began, he decided he was going to take this game over.
After a 14-point first half on 4-8 shooting from the field, Butler scored 17 points on 4-5 shooting from the field in just the third quarter. He shot 9-10 from the free-throw line and recorded three steals, twice coming on consecutive possessions against Tatum.
JIMMY BUTLER IS EVERYWHERE.
(via @TSN_Sports)pic.twitter.com/KgvzcGxeVL
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 18, 2022
Butler finished with 41 points and a stat line that no one has ever done in league history. He showed once again how brilliant he can be in the NBA playoffs. Boston has to put together a game plan for him on both sides of the ball if they want to advance to the Finals.
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