| 28 April 2010
(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Boston Celtics 96, Miami Heat 86
As the final seconds of this series ticked away from the game clock, I couldn’t help but think just how wrong everybody was about where this series was supposed to go.
Going into the playoffs, the Boston Celtics were just 28-27 in their last 55 games of the season. That means they spent a good chunk of basketball playing as well as the Chicago Bulls did this season. They looked old throughout the regular season. They looked battered too. Kevin Garnett’s leg wasn’t all that healthy, Paul Pierce was a step slower, the bench was questionable at best and Rasheed Wallace was sucking the energy and life out of the Boston faithful with each hastily tossed up three-pointer and every lazy movement on defense.
The Celtics looked to be on the downside of their run, just two years after they won a title. The Heat posed a problem for them in the first round in theory. The Heat had Dwyane Wade who can’t be stopped by any human or made-made machinery. It’s going to take some serious alien technology to figure out how to stop him from consistently putting up impressive stat lines and a ton of points. To go with him, they have several role players with the potential to do some damage against a team that suspects they’re better than they actually are.
So in theory, it looked like this series was bound to go seven games, even if the Heat really didn’t have a huge chance of moving on to the second round.
Instead, the Celtics busted out to a three games to zero series lead thanks to a lot of good defense, some timely shooting from its stars and the motivation to stop everyone on the Heat that didn’t gave “Wade” on the back of his jersey. This Game Five wasn’t much different from what we saw in the first four games of this series. The Boston Celtics were able to smother the Heat whenever they needed to. The Celtics shared the ball well while Rajon Rondo carved up the Heat defense. The Celtics constantly made the extra pass.
Rondo, Garnett and Pierce all scored early to get Boston out to an early comfortable lead. As the Celtics could sense victory coming after building a 20-point lead, they nearly succumbed to a Dwyane Wade assault in the second half. Wade scored 20 of his 31 points in the third and fourth quarters as he tried to salvage the competitive spirit of the Miami Heat. To no avail, Ray Allen extinguished any offensive barrage that the Heat could muster. Ray shot the lights out in the second half and matched Wade’s 20-point outburst.
And as always, Dwyane Wade ended the game with fantastic numbers and very little help from his teammates. Mario Chalmers was timely with 20 points off the bench. But not another single player for Miami topped eight points in their last game of the season. Not Quentin Richardson, Michael Beasley or Jermaine O’Neal could muster up enough pride to stand up to the Celtics when facing elimination. But hey, at least they combined for 13 points in 78 minutes of play.
Why Boston Won This Game
Much like in this entire series, Ray Allen found a way to elevate his game to bring the Celtics to victory. The Heat had a horrible habit of doubling off of him because their rotations were confused and slow throughout this five-game stretch. When they would double away from Ray, he’d always remain open just long enough to fire off a quick long-range jumper to make Miami pay. Game Five was no different. 24 points with five threes made. For the series, he upped his regular season numbers from 16.3 points per game to 19.4 playoff points per game, 47% shooting to 52% shooting and 36% three-point shooting to 52% from Dan Majerle range. Ray was not going to slump in the first round this year.
Why Miami Lost This Game
Dwyane Wade is playing with a bunch of expirings in order to hopefully bring a big-named free agent. These expirings have either insufficient talent or insufficient pride. In some cases, it’s both. Good luck this summer, Heat fans.
Looking Ahead To The Next Round For Boston
Boston looks a lot better than everybody thought. KG looks pretty healthy and played really good defense in this series. When he’s playing like this, you start to believe the rest of the Celtics can fall in line. Throw in Ray Allen’s hot shooting from outside and Paul Pierce’s theatrics (both good and bad) and perhaps this Cavs team is in for a bigger fight than we all assume.
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