Boston Celtics: 2 unsung studs from redemption win over Miami in Game 2

As one may remember, the Boston Celtics came out swinging in Game 1 of the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals this past Tuesday, only to then lose momentum in the second half and, in turn, go down in this best-of-seven series 1-0 to the Miami Heat.

Thursday’s Game 2 started a little slower, as the visiting C’s went down by double-digits early in the first, but the initial 24 minutes of play as a whole proved to have a similar feel for Ime Udoka’s squad, as they attained a sizeable lead heading into the half at 70-45 and, once again, had Jayson Tatum pave the way for such an advantage by dropping 20-points during this stretch.

Now, because of what transpired in their previous outing, fans were a bit hesitant to show the full extent of their excitement with their team playing so well, for, as we saw earlier in the week, a big lead can vanish fast if the gas is let up on.

Fortunately for Boston and their faithful followers, the pedal was floored from the midway point of the initial period all the way until the final buzzer sounded, as they managed to push their lead north of 30-points on multiple occasions during the second half and, ultimately, finished out the contest with a 25-point edge, blowing out the top-seeded Heat by a final score of 127-102 and, as a result, tied up this series at one game apiece.

Prior to tip-off, it was announced that both Marcus Smart and Al Horford would make their Eastern Conference Finals debuts after missing the previous bout due to a foot injury and Health and Safety Protocols, respectively.

Their return to the lineup was bound to give the shamrocks a huge boost both in the leadership and efficiency departments, and boy did this prove to be the case, as the team continuously saw themselves playing cool, calm, and collected basketball (something not fully present in Game 1) even when initially rattled and wound up finishing the game with stellar splits of 51 percent shooting from the floor, 50 percent shooting from deep, and 91 percent shooting from the charity stripe.

Thursday’s win was unequivocally an overall team effort, with every player who stepped foot on the hardwood positively impacting the game in one way or another.

In fact, we were so impressed by how the Boston Celtics played that we couldn’t even convince ourselves to write a 1 stud and 1 dud piece for, truth be told, there really weren’t any duds.

Instead, we at HH decided to change the series up a bit and go more in a positive direction by pointing 2 unsung studs from the C’s redemption win over Miami in Game 2: