The Boston Celtics will take on the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday in Boston, and Jaylen Brown said the Celtics are not underestimating the Heat in this series, despite them coming in as an eight seed.
“They've got a tremendous story, being able to go all the way from play-in and just steamroll through the playoffs,” Jaylen Brown said, via Jay King of The Athletic. “We've just got to come out and set the tone with our energy and try to cool them off a little bit.”
This is a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals. That time the Heat had home-court advantage, but lost the series in seven games. This time, Boston has home-court. Brown noted that this year's Heat team is different from last year.
“It's not the same team as last year,” Jaylen Brown said, via King. “Jimmy is still Jimmy and Spoke is still Spot, but we've got to make sure that we're aware to everybody else – Kevin Love, some of the new guys that they got.”
As Brown mentioned, the Heat had to go through the play-in tournament to make the NBA Playoffs. Miami lost its first game to the Atlanta Hawks, and beat the Chicago Bulls to earn the eight seed. From then on, the Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks in five games in the first round, and the New York Knicks in six games in the second round. The Celtics beat the Hawks in the first round in six games, then beat the Philadelphia 76ers in seven games.
Interestingly, if the Heat had won their first game against the Hawks in the play-in, they would have played the Celtics in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Now it is a conference final matchup.
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