The Boston Celtics managed to climb their way out of a 3-2 series deficit against the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference semifinals to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Their opponent will be a familiar one in the Miami Heat, as this will be the third time in the past four years that these two teams have met up in the ECF.
On paper, this is a matchup that the Celtics should win, but as the Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks found out the hard way, that doesn't mean anything against the Heat. Boston and Miami are both very familiar with each other, so after getting bounced in six games back in 2020 and barely squeaking out with a Game 7 victory on the road last year, the C's aren't going to take the Heat lightly.
These two squads have grinded out their previous meetings in the postseason, and this battle will surely be more of the same. The Heat are a well-coached team that will pounce on any weakness they can find, meaning the Celtics are going to have to play some of their best basketball to win this series. So with that in mind, let's look at the three keys to victory in this series for Boston if they want to advance to their second straight NBA Finals.
3. Joe Mazzulla, Celtics can't get out coached by Erik Spoelstra
When the Celtics were staring at a potential first-round matchup with the Heat (hard to believe that was a possibility at the beginning of the playoffs) one of the main talking points was the coaching discrepancy between Erik Spoelstra of the Heat and Joe Mazzulla of the Celtics. Boston may have been the more talented team, but Spoelstra was viewed as likely to coach circles around Mazzulla.
Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, there hasn't been much done to discredit that notion. Spoelstra has guided the Heat past the presumed best team in basketball in the Bucks, and worked through a gritty series against the Knicks. Mazzulla, on the other hand, has cost Boston games with his poor coaching decisions, and generally made confusing decisions with each passing game.
To Mazzulla's credit, he was at his best in Games 6 & 7 against the Sixers to help save the Celtics season, but going up against Spoelstra is going to be a whole new challenge. Spoelstra has the buy-in of his players to try everything possible against Boston, and you can bet some of his decisions are going to pay off. How Mazzulla adapts and adjusts to the wrinkles Spoelstra throws at him is going to be a very big piece of this series, as the Celtics cannot allow the coaching to be a factor throughout this one.
2. Celtics must contain Bam Adebayo
All eyes are going to be on Jimmy Butler entering this series, and rightfully so. Butler torched the Bucks in the first-round, and while he wasn't as good against the Knicks after receiving way more attention and injuring his ankle, it's clear that he is the Heat's offense. However, from Boston's point of view, Bam Adebayo may be a more important piece to keep an eye on.
Adebayo has been pretty consistent throughout the playoffs so far (18.1 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 3.5 APG, 49.7 FG%) but against the Celtics in the ECF last year, he struggled to make a consistent impact (15 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 2.6 APG, 59.5 FG%). Adebayo was held to ten or fewer points in four of the seven games, as the Celtics devised a strong gameplan to keep him quiet for long stretches of the action.
Butler is going to get a ton of attention as is, but Boston has a lot of different options they can throw at him to slow him down. That makes Adebayo an extremely important piece for the Heat on offense. If he can't get going, the Heat are going to have to rely on their secondary pieces to provide them scoring, and against this strong Celtics defense, that won't be as easy to accomplish as it had been in their two prior series.
1. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have to guide Celtics offense
The biggest question entering this series revolves around whether or not the Heat will be able to give Butler enough support on offense, but on the other end of the court, how they defend the Celtics is an equally important piece to the puzzle. Spoelstra has had success devising schemes to slow down the C's two best players in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown before, and that could be crucial to keeping Miami alive in this series.
Boston has the players available to help these two stars out, but there will be stretches where the offense goes cold, and the Heat go on a run. It's how they win basketball games, and it's how they very nearly beat the C's last year. When the Heat are using good defense to set up easy points on offense, they are tough to slow down.
It's going to be up to Tatum and Brown to guide the offense and ensure that these runs aren't too frequent. Both guys are going to have advantageous matchups throughout this series (particularly Tatum, who was hounded by P.J. Tucker last year) and they are going to have to get buckets at crucial times when their team needs them to. We just saw these two guys deliver the goods in Game 7 against Philadelphia, and if they can carry that over to this series against Miami, Boston will be in a great spot to find their way back to the NBA Finals.
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