Celtics hilariously historic performance helps them dominate Heat

The Boston Celtics bounced back in a big way in Miami on Wednesday, after dropping a game in Atlanta two days prior. They rode an explosive start to a decisive win over the Heat, behind big nights from Jaylen Brown (43 points, seven assists, three rebounds), Jayson Tatum (25 points, 18 rebounds, and 11 assists), Sam Hauser (23 points on 9-11 from the field), and Neemias Queta (16 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks).

Here's what stood out in Boston's 147-129 win over the Heat:

If you want to talk about setting the tone, look no further

Wednesday was a historic night for the Celtics, who posted their highest-first-quarter point total since 1970. They rained down three after three en route to 53 points across the opening 12 minutes.

Reading it sounds ridiculous. Watching it was an entirely different experience. With each ensuing basket, the game just got funnier and funnier.

At first, Miami and Boston were both scoring at will. The Heat actually had a 30-29 lead over the Celtics with 4:44 to play.

Then it got worse. The Cs closed the quarter on a 24-3 run behind offensive explosions from Sam Hauser (17 points on 6-6 from the field) and Jaylen Brown (20 points on 8-11 from the field), who outscored Miami by themselves.

As a team, the Celtics converted on 20 of their 28 attempts from the field, including 11 of their 15 from deep.

Their first quarter scoring was so ridiculous that they could’ve went scoreless in the second and still been down by just four at halftime.

This game was closer than it needed to be

Once Boston sped out to a 20-point lead, they did a solid job of maintaining their distance. They led by as many as 27 points, and mostly stomped out any Heat run by the time the lead was cut to 17.

That was, until the third quarter.

Miami caught fire from deep and kept creating open looks for themselves as the Cs made a habit of collapsing on drives.

The Heat sank 11 of their 15 three-point attempts, matching Boston’s first-quarter pace with their own onslaught.

They closed on a 12-0 run over the final two minutes to bring themselves within 10 heading into the final frame. Miami pushed within as few as nine points early in the fourth quarter, before Boston put the game to bed.

Miami’s defense is not good

You really shouldn’t need me to tell you that Miami’s defense isn’t good this deep into the story, but I’ll do it anyway. There’s a reason why they’ve played significantly more zone defense than the rest of the league since the All-Star break -- throwing junk defenses out there gives them their best chance of getting a stop.

The Heat give up so many open threes, even when they’re not leaving gaps in a zone. Their miscommunications aren’t hard to notice when watching them try and defend. One of the best examples came on a Payton Pritchard three about halfway through the fourth quarter.

Miami was (maybe?) in a zone and didn’t have anyone guarding the left corner. Pritchard notice this, sprinted to the open space and sank the wide-open triple.

It shouldn’t be that easy, lol.