Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from C’s wire-to-wire win over Miami
The Boston Celtics continued their stretch of good basketball on Monday night, defeating the Miami Heat by a final score of 122-92. The C’s led wire-to-wire, dominating one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams on both ends of the floor.
Coming into the game, Boston was already at an advantage what with the fact that the Heat were missing both Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry in their backcourt. Despite that, the Miami developmental system has produced success stories in Max Strus, Gabe Vincent, and Caleb Martin, with the former finishing with 27 points on nine 3-pointers in this one.
The Heat ended up shooting a decent percentage from long distance (38.6%), but almost everything was difficult for them inside the perimeter, with both Robert Williams and Al Horford playing stout defense all night.
Ultimately, it was an impressive showing for Boston, with the game never really in jeopardy — something that hasn’t happened often this year.
With this win, the C’s move to 27-25, two games over .500.
That’s the first time since December 4th that they’ve hit that threshold, back when they were just 13-11 on the year. They also finish the month of January with a 10-6 record.
It’s been a rocky road to get here, but let’s hope their start to build momentum into the trade deadline, looking to make intriguing fringe moves to improve their roster.
With that being said, here are 3 takeaways from the Celtics’ impressive win on Monday.
Boston Celtics takeaway No. 1) The shining starting unit
The usual starting five of Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Horford, and Williams absolutely outclassed Miami’s respective unit, with no player having a plus/minus worse than +24.
That kind of effectiveness, especially when compared to Boston’s bench production, will almost always lead to a comfortable victory.
The starters were playing so effectively that coach Ime Udoka looked to them to end the first half, something he’s almost never done. Before this contest, all but 13 of the starters’ minutes have been played in the first and third quarters.
Since coming back from Covid-19, Smart has taken this offense to another level.
He moves the ball incredibly quickly when it is swung to him, and he has also shown efficiency as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll. He also had one of his better shooting games of the year, finishing with 16 points and seven assists while hitting four of his seven attempts from beyond the arc.
Both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were scoring effectively as well, combining for 49 points on 18-34 shooting. Neither were overly selfish in their shot selection and found the right man to take advantage of the undersized Heat.
The C’s were successful in getting both Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo in foul trouble early, greatly diminishing their chances at making any sort of comeback.
Yes, the Celtics shot well (16-42 from deep), but their offensive performance was more than that.
With this starting unit, they’re running off of defensive rebounds, looking to score rather than waiting for points to come to them. The combination of Smart and Robert Williams speeds up the offensive process drastically, allowing Boston’s star wings to run downhill as well.
Overall, this starting unit is starting to come into its own, carrying the team to wins like this one.