The Boston Celtics were nothing short of dominant against the league-best Miami Heat, as they came away victorious with a 95-78 blowout win.
Despite just a combined 27 points on 27 shots from Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the Cs found a way to get it done. The win was largely predicated on defensive effort and bench production.
Holding this Heat team, with the number two offense in the NBA, to 78 points is not something many other teams will likely replicate.
A 25 point bench advantage largely proved to be the difference in this game, as the C’s second unit outscored the Heat’s 45-20 which is a great thing to see as Boston’s ranked 26th in bench points per game this season.
There were plenty of things to take away from this dominant win versus a top team, but 3 should suffice:
Boston Celtics takeaway No. 1) Miami came back and the C’s defense responded
The Boston Celtics largely dominated the first half, and early in the third quarter had a 62-42 lead.
By the 2:30 mark in the third, the Heat had cut the lead to eight, and it felt like another one of those games that the Cs would let slip away.
However, they responded and got the lead back up to 18 less than two minutes later.
This team had yet to show that grit, as all we had seen is them blowing leads, losing confidence, and spiraling out of control.
Undoubtedly, this is an amazing sight to see, and a positive direction for the squad to be heading in.
Jayson Tatum struggled and Jaylen Brown didn’t play the entire fourth quarter, yet this team still held strong, played exceptional defense, and kept the lead. The bench scored 45 out of the team’s 95 total points, headlined by Aaron Nesmith, Romeo Langford, and Dennis Schroder making up 39 of those 45.
As had been alluded to, this game was not one to commend the offense, but rather the defense.
This is the second game in a row the Boston Celtics have held their opponents to under 80 points.
This was the first time they have done this since January 18th and 20th of the 2011-12 season, nearly 10 years ago.
I’m going to say this with a grain of salt, but I think this team might be finding its defensive identity.
They have too many talented defenders to be as bad as they were on defense. It needs to be consistently good, but as Aaron Nesmith said post-game: “We want to be the number one defensive team.”
Boston Celtics takeaway No. 2) Aaron Nesmith makes most of his opportunity
Boston Celtics wing Aaron Nesmith has been fairly quiet this year. You can largely pin this on the fact that he really has not been presented with the opportunity to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t producing much in the first few games, but that does not mean that you stop playing him altogether.
He has played three total minutes over the last five games, including three DNPs.
In the first three games of the season, he played a bit more, averaging nine minutes a night, but didn’t make a single shot, most likely the cause for the multiple coach decision DNPs.
We saw last season what happens when you don’t play Aaron Nesmith for long stretches of time. He might have a cold shooting streak, but with consistent minutes, he eventually heats up.
When he isn’t making shots, he is still making plays. He is a high-energy player that is constantly on the ground diving for loose balls and crashing the boards for offensive and defensive rebounds.
Celtics fans all over Twitter were clamoring for more Nesmith minutes, and Thursday…it’s exactly what they got.
He shined with 13 points on five-for-eight shooting from the field and three-for-five from deep.
He played 18 minutes tonight, compared to the 30 he had played in the eight other games this season.
Obviously, the increase in minutes was due to Josh Richardson missing the game with a foot contusion. However, as was a question before the season, the two-guard trio of Nesmith, Langford, and Richardson has not exactly been all too different in production when given the minutes.
It is a good problem for the Celtics to have, an excess of productive players at a position of versatility, it leaves many lineups to be experimented with.
Boston Celtics takeaway No. 3) The struggles of Jayson Tatum continue
Boston Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum, quite frankly, hasn’t been himself virtually all season long.
He has had some good games sprinkled in here and there but, overall, has been off.
Since the game in Charlotte, Tatum has made just 34 out of his last 105 field goals, five for his last 28 3-point attempts, and 21 of his last 30 free-throw attempts.
I’m sure there are a lot of factors going into these struggles, but something we can all agree on is that it’s unlikely this continues much longer.
The fact that the Celtics can beat the league-best Miami Heat, with Tatum going 3-13 and not making his first field goal until the fourth quarter is a pretty uplifting notion. Imagine what they could have looked like if he was his usual self.
As stated before, there are lots of things that I think are playing into our superstar struggling this badly. I think it’s a combination of a long offseason, lack of confidence, a new ball, new foul rules, and a new offensive scheme that doesn’t exactly play to his strengths.
I made a tweet detailing my gripes with the coaching of Tatum, but to put it short he is a shot creator and they need to use him as such.
Ime Udoka is constantly playing Tatum out of the post at about 15-17 feet from the hoop, and letting him work from there. Tatum has solid vision, a solid mid-range jumper, and usually is good at getting to the hoop.
I suggested that we go back to what worked, which is starting possessions with high screens, so Tatum can get downhill. These often lead to open treys, open mid-range shots, and momentum to the hoop which is undoubtedly more effective than “post-up Tatum”.
Whatever works, the Boston Celtics should go to it.
You will only go as far as Tatum and Brown take you, and while winning without either performing well is great, it cannot be a staple of the team.