Just hours before Tuesday night’s Game 1, it was announced that the Boston Celtics would be without two of their starters and most prominent leaders in Marcus Smart (foot sprain) and Al Horford (Health and Safety Protocols).
With this, oddsmakers bumped Miami up from two-point favorites to four-point favorites.
Now, right off the bat in this outing, it appeared that Vegas had made a mistake with their alterations, for the C’s absolutely dominated the top-seeded Heat through the first two quarters of action, seeing several double-digit leads prior to halftime with Jayson Tatum paving the way for his ball club with 21 points.
Unfortunately, while the first 24 minutes were all Boston, the final 24 were all Miami, as the hometown team played with a type of grit, grind, and hustle that proved to be too much for Ime Udoka’s squad to handle.
Going on a 22-2 to kick off the third, the Heat were producing at an astonishing level on both ends of the floor to start the final half, dropping a whopping 39 points whilst letting up just14 and forcing eight turnovers (six of which came from Tatum, who put up just five points in the quarter).
Ultimately, this proved to be the momentum shift that Jimmy Butler (finished with 41 points, nine rebounds, five assists, four steals, and three blocks) and co. needed, as they turned an eight-point deficit to close out the first two quarters into an 11-point advantage once the final buzzer sounded, downing the Boston Celtics by a final score of 118-107.
In this contest, Udoka rolled out a rotation of eight players, all of whom had varying degrees of triumphs and tribulations, and, with Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals now in the rearview, we at HH present to you 1 stud and 1 dud from the C’s depleting loss to the Miami Heat: