The Boston Celtics defeated the Toronto Raptors on Friday night in the Eastern Conference semifinals, setting up what promises to be a terrific Eastern Conference Finals between the C’s and the Miami Heat, who ousted the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in five games earlier in the week.
Despite the Heat being a five-seed (as compared to Boston’s third seed), Heat leader Jimmy Butler is not going into the series with an underdog mentality, per a story on NBC Sports by A. Sherrod Blakeley:
“I don’t think we’re the underdog. I think we’re a really good team,” the Heat star said. “We play together; everybody knows their role and we just compete. We’re competitors. We’re not embracing ‘underdogs’ … we’re supposed to be here. That’s how we think of it. To us, we’re not underdogs, we’re competitors.”
Indeed, Butler is right to think that the Heat are in a great position in the series.
For one thing, the Heat should be far more rested than the Celtics, as Boston was subjected to two extremely tense and harrowing final games in their series—games that likely took their toll on the team physically.
Both the Celtics and Raptors played dogged defense, which surely sapped some of the team’s collective energy. That defense will have to be rock-solid again for the Celtics against the Heat, and on the other side, the non-underdog Heat also play extremely tenacious and unflappable defense.
While the seeding might make it look like the Celtics are at an advantage, only one of these teams defeated the “best team in the NBA” during these playoffs: the Miami Heat.
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