Four numbers to make you worry about the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals

To crack a bottle of champagne over the premiere of the most complexly named blockbuster movie franchise in recorded history: the Boston Celtics vs the Miami Heat in “The Eastern Conference Finals III: SuperJimmy Strikes Back”, allow me to throw some numbers at you without any of the requisite contexts:

3, 4, 97, and 0.

These numbers are worth monitoring during the Boston Celtics-Heat series

Despite sounding vaguely like the next winning Powerball number, those numbers actually each represent a different aspect of the upcoming series that will keep me up at night. In the spirit of overcomplicating everything, let’s unpack those numbers so we can all freak out together.

3… the number of times the Celtics and Heat have met in the Eastern Conference Finals in the last four years.

Let’s think bigger than the best-of-seven series that will send one of these teams through to the NBA Finals. More accurately, this is the third leg in a best-of-three series of Eastern Conference Finals that will decide who officially runs the eastern seaboard for the last half-decade. The 2020 Bubble saw a similar but wildly less-good-than-they-are-now Celtics team fall in six games to an extremely well-put-together Heat team on a mission behind a possessed performance from Bam Adebayo.

And after each taking a year off—presumably to trick everyone else into thinking they had a chance at competing in the P.L. (post-LeBron) Eastern Conference—both parties resumed their battle in 2022, with the Boston Celtics narrowly prevailing in Game 7 after a totally overmatched Heat squad caused Celtics fans more trauma in two weeks than Babe Ruth caused Red Sox fans for 82 years. Maybe not that dramatic, but it was really bad.

In episode three of this quote-unquote rivalry, that emotional baggage is going to weigh pretty heavily. For those unlucky enough to have their eyes open with 16.6 seconds left in Game 7, the Boston Celtics almost blew a 13-point lead in an astoundingly quick 3 minutes and 35 seconds, barely escaping the Jimmy Butler onslaught. Even after advancing to the NBA Finals, I was left with a 1000-yard stare. One moment the game was over, the next it was slipping away before I could even figure out what had happened.

And that’s what’s so frustrating about the Heat: nothing makes any sense. Nothing is better at explaining that than the next number.

4… number of players on the Heat than I had ever worried about before yesterday.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons has taken to calling Miami “The Zombie Heat,” and maybe that’s because they keep pulling guys nobody has ever heard of out of the shadow realm and turning them into valuable contributors.

Remember Duncan Robinson? The most overcompensated unplayable three-and-can’t-play-defense wing of all time? Yeah, he’s a 20+ minute guy again. What about Kevin Love? He was bought out by the Cavaliers for whatever reason and now STARTS for the Heat. Caleb Martin? The guy who couldn’t even make the rotation of the Charlotte Hornets, the most dysfunctional team in basketball? He’s cooking with gas for the Heat these days.

This roster of zombie-cyborg-freakazoids leads to an extremely confusing situation, where one has not even heard of the guy that went 6-7 from three to steal a home game. Frustration at losing is one thing, but not knowing where to direct that rage is another level of annoyance.

97…the percent chance ESPN’s BPI gives the Celtics to win the series.

This is a preposterous number. Get this number out of my face. I do not care what advanced-algorithmic-true-shooting-percentage-offensive/defensive-win-share-based wizardry this number is based on. Get it out of my face.

I am not an analytics Luddite by any means. But analytics are best used when they supplement—and not replace—the eye test, especially in a game as fluid as basketball. And I have watched enough Celtics-Heat basketball to know there is a greater than three-percent chance that the Heat win this series.

Let me map it out for you: Jimmy Butler goes nuts and steals Game 1 at the Garden. The Boston Celtics bounce back and win Game 2, but then Max Strus and Duncan Robinson go a combined 12-15 from three and maul the Celtics to take a 2-1 lead. Because they are way more talented and deep, the Celtics blow out the Heat in the next two games to go up 3-2, but another freak Butler game wins Game 6 on a Tatum disappearing act. Now it’s Game 7, and who knows what happens then.

Does that sound like a 3 percent chance to you?

0…the number of total home court advantages in this series.

I bet you thought the zero was going to be Jayson Tatum’s number, but I just gave that man an entire column, so I went a different direction. The reason for the lack of home court is due to experience on both sides. Neither team is afraid of going into the other’s house. The Cs won a Game 7 in Miami last year, and the Heat are not afraid of anyone.

Tatum’s number would have been a worthy inclusion, as his 51-point bonanza should scare the Heat if they ever find the Celtics with their backs truly against the walls again, and the TD Garden crowd had a lot to do with that. But nobody likes silencing a crowd quite like Butler, so the advantage of rowdy fans can be a double-edged sword.

And Butler is a giant slayer, staring down the Celtics as far and away as the title favorites after taking down Philadelphia. This series will be unrestricted submarine warfare, not a blowout, and the Heat are specialists in making basketball games into borderline war crimes. Something is going to go wrong for the Boston Celtics, I just don’t know what yet.