Boston Celtics: 3 X-factors for Cs in Miami Heat Eastern Conference Finals series

In their Eastern Conference Finals series against the Miami Heat, the Boston Celtics find themselves rostering a few notable X-factors.

Heading into this year’s Eastern Conference Finals series between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat, we all had a pretty good idea that it was going to be a slugfest. Game one proved to be all that it was hyped up to be.

For those who missed it, opening night was a back and forth chess match that saw many highs, many lows, and an unfortunate amount of plateaus for the Cs. Though going up by as many as 12 points early on, Miami clawed their way back to force overtime where, alongside arguably the best defensive stop of the postseason, they wound up thwarting off Boston by a score of 117-114.

Like the theme of all their losses throughout this year’s postseason, this game was one the Cs could have easily won. Had a few more things gone their way we could be heading into game two up 1-0 in this best-of-seven series instead of down. The fact of the matter is, however, this is just a hypothetical and the reality is the shamrocks are coming into tonight’s game looking to even things at one game apiece instead of taking part in the alternative which would be having them fall behind two games to none.

This Heat squad led by All-NBA star Jimmy Butler and first-year All-Star Bam Adebayo is one that cannot be taken lightly. That said, the Celtics realistically have every tool necessary to come away from this Eastern Conference showdown and advance to their first NBA Finals in a decade — they just have to put all the pieces together to do so.

In regard to said pieces, there are a few that can certainly be viewed as having a greater impact than others; X-factors, if you will.

Today, the Houdini will pinpoint three specific players we believe to be the biggest X-factors in this already entertaining series against the boys from South Beach: