Jokic's Versatility Cools off Heat as Nuggets Win Game One of the NBA Finals
Before analyzing how well the Denver Nuggets played in their 104-93 victory over the Miami Heat in game one of the 2023 NBA Finals, it is important to emphasize that this is not Denver's first Finals appearance; the New York Nets defeated the Denver Nuggets 4-2 in the 1976 ABA Finals as New York's Julius Erving authored one of the greatest performances in playoff history, leading both teams in scoring (37.7 ppg), rebounding (14.2 rpg), assists (6.0 apg), steals (3.0 spg) and blocked shots (2.2 bpg). At that time, only three other players had averaged more points in a Finals series (Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West), and 47 years later Erving's average still ranks sixth in Finals history.
The Nuggets have a rich history dating back to the ABA that should be honored and recognized by the NBA and the NBA's media partners--as should all of the ABA's statistics and records. Three players from Denver's 1976 Finals team have been inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame--David Thompson, Dan Issel, and Bobby Jones--and Nikola Jokic is well on his way toward earning that honor.
In game one versus the Heat, Jokic led both teams in scoring (27 points on 8-12 field goal shooting and 10-12 free throw shooting) and assists (14) while also grabbing 10 rebounds. Jokic broke Bill Russell's NBA Finals single game record for assists by a center as he posted his ninth triple double of the 2023 playoffs, extending his own record for most triple doubles in one postseason. Jokic presents a challenge that the Heat seem unlikely to be able to solve: when they guarded Jokic one on one, he killed them with his scoring in the post, but when they sent a second defender to harass Jokic then he dissected them with his passing. Jokic's ability to score, rebound, and pass at a high level wrecked any defense that Miami tried. ABC's Jeff Van Gundy repeatedly mentioned Jokic's great conditioning, and how that great conditioning enables Jokic to be dominant for all four quarters; that is a major factor that distinguishes two-time regular season MVP Jokic from 2023 regular season MVP Joel Embiid.
Jamal Murray continued his outstanding 2023 playoff run, finishing with 26 points, 10 assists, and six rebounds. Aaron Gordon added 16 points and six rebounds while playing great defense against Jimmy Butler. Michael Porter Jr. contributed 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds as Denver's size overwhelmed Miami, resulting in a remarkable statistic: the Heat set an NBA playoff single game record by attempting just two free throws; it seemed as if Denver had a moat surrounding the paint on defense and an express lane leading to the paint on offense.
Bam Adebayo led the Heat with 26 points and 13 rebounds while dishing for five assists. Gabe Vincent scored 19 points and had five assists. Haywood Highsmith poured in 18 points on 7-10 field goal shooting in 23 minutes off of the bench, and backup point guard Kyle Lowry provided a lift with 11 points, five assists, and five rebounds.
However, Miami's two Eastern Conference Finals heroes--Jimmy Butler and Caleb Martin--had forgettable games. Butler had 13 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists while compiling a game-worst -17 plus/minus number, and Martin scored three points on 1-7 field goal shooting.
Is Butler wearing down? He began the 2023 playoffs with 35 points, 11 assists, five rebounds, and three steals as the Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks in game one, becoming just the fourth player to accomplish that stat line more than once in a playoff game since the NBA began tracking steals in 1974, joining Russell Westbrook (three times), Michael Jordan (twice), and LeBron James (twice). Butler scored at least 25 points while shooting at least .500 from the field in each of his first six games this postseason--tied with Bernard King (1984) and Michael Jordan (1992) for the fourth longest such steak ever behind only LeBron James (2017) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (10 in 1970, nine in 1977)--but Butler has shot at least .500 from the field just once in his past 10 playoff games (including game one of the NBA Finals). After scoring at least 30 points in four of his first five playoff games in 2023, Butler has topped the 30 point barrier just once in his last 13 playoff games.
The NBA is often a first quarter league, and that was very much the case in this game. The Nuggets outscored the Heat 29-20 in the first 12 minutes--including 20-6 in the paint--as Jokic scored just four points but shredded the Heat's defense with six assists. Gordon sliced the Heat to ribbons with his cuts to the hoop, scoring 12 points on 6-8 field goal shooting. The second quarter produced a similar score--30-22 in Denver's favor--but by different means, as the Heat did a better job protecting the hoop only to see the Nuggets shoot 4-5 from three point range. Unlike the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Nuggets do not "dribble, dribble, dribble" into contested jumpers; the Nuggets attack the paint, and create outside shots from their paint attacks.
Near the end of the third quarter, the Nuggets pushed their lead to 84-60, but the Heat never quit, and they cut the margin to 96-87 with 2:34 remaining in the fourth quarter. Jokic was content to spend most of the game as a distributor, but in the fourth quarter as the Heat made their run he scored 12 points on 4-7 field goal shooting to seal the deal.
Two reasons that the Heat ended up with the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference are anemic offense, and being an undersized team that has difficulty dealing with bigger players/bigger teams. Those are the reasons that I expected the Heat to lose to the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics but--to the Heat's credit--they played much better in the Eastern Conference playoffs than they did during the regular season. The Heat are unlikely to grow prior to game two, and the Nuggets are unlikely to shrink. The Heat can attack the hoop more aggressively, and they can more frequently target Jokic's defense by involving him in the two man game at the top of the key; look for the Heat to do both of those things in game two, but also look for the Nuggets to play even better than they did in game one en route to taking a 2-0 lead before the series shifts to Miami for games three and four.
Labels: Aaron Gordon, ABA, Bam Adebayo, Denver Nuggets, Jamal Murray, Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat, Nikola Jokic
posted by David Friedman @ 1:03 AM
Nurse is Unlikely to Cure What Ails 76ers Because Coaching is not the Team's Problem
The Philadelphia 76ers have hired Nick Nurse, who led the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA title, to replace the fired Doc Rivers as their coach. Rivers inherited a Philadelphia 76ers team that went 43-30 (.589 winning percentage) in the COVID-19 shortened 2019-20 season, and the 76ers posted a better record than that in each of his three seasons: 49-23 (.681) in 2021, 51-31 (.622) in 2022, and 54-28 (.659) in 2023. The 76ers lost in the second round of the playoffs in each of Rivers' three seasons, so Rivers--the 2000 NBA Coach of the Year who led the 2008 Boston Celtics to the NBA title--took the fall.
Nurse is an excellent coach, but it is not clear what he can do to cure the team's three main problems:
1) Joel Embiid's propensity to be injured and ineffective in the playoffs, which may be connected with the fact that he rarely seems to be in tip top physical condition.
2) James Harden's propensity to disappear in elimination games, which he did again in 2023 with nine points on 3-11 field goal shooting as the Boston Celtics routed the 76ers, 112-88. In that game Harden produced yet another "Harden"--he had more turnovers (five) than field goals made.
3) Philadelphia's President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey is delusional enough to assert that James Harden is a greater scorer than Michael Jordan, a stance that Morey has not renounced. Delusional thinking does not tend to lead to rational decisions. Morey has claimed for two decades that his use of "advanced basketball statistics" provides a tangible advantage, a claim that is belied by his record in Houston and Philadelphia.
The main image/sound bite that I will remember from Rivers' Philadelphia tenure is his annual sideline pleas to his team during playoff timeouts to play hard, a plea that fell on deaf ears. Are we supposed to believe that when Nurse begs Embiid, Harden, and company to play hard the players will comply?
The 76ers are built on a faulty foundation of tanking despite the reality that tanking does not work. A large body of evidence indicates that a team run by Daryl Morey that relies on Joel Embiid and James Harden will max out by losing in the second round, and there is no reason to believe that Nurse will change that.
Labels: Doc Rivers, James Harden, Joel Embiid, Nick Nurse, Philadelphia 76ers
posted by David Friedman @ 9:55 PM
Denver Versus Miami Preview
NBA Finals
Denver (51-31) vs. Miami (44-38)
Season series: Denver, 2-0
Miami can win if…Jimmy Butler is "Playoff Jimmy," and if the Heat collectively can counteract Denver's superior individual talent.
Butler averaged 24.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 6.2 apg, and 2.5 spg in the Eastern Conference Finals as the Heat defeated the Boston Celtics in seven games. He won the second annual Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP. Butler has led the eighth seeded Heat to a 13-6 playoff record in 2023 while averaging 28.5 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 5.7 apg, and 2.1 spg. The Heat defeated the top two seeds (Milwaukee and Boston) to win the Eastern Conference.
Caleb Martin has quickly elevated himself from undrafted player struggling to stay in the league to solid rotation player to key contributor who was one vote away from winning the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. Martin averaged 18.2 ppg and 5.8 rpg in the Eastern Conference Finals while leading the Heat with 18 three point field goals made. Overall, he ranks third on the Heat in playoff scoring (14.1 ppg), fourth in rebounding (5.7 rpg), third in three point field goals made (39), and second in three point field goal percentage (.438) among Heat players who have attempted at least one three pointer per game during the postseason.
Two-time All-Star (2020, 2023) Bam Adebayo ranks second on the team in playoff scoring (16.8 ppg), first in rebounding (9.2 rpg), and fourth in assists (3.8 apg). He is a 6-9 center who neither posts up much nor shoots many three pointers, but who provides value as an all-around player. Adebayo gives up a lot of size to Nikola Jokic; he will not be able to match Jokic's statistics or impact, but it will be vital for the Heat that Adebayo makes Jokic work at both ends of the court.
Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra is more than living up to his status as one of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history. His teams are consistently well-prepared, focused, and tough-minded.
Denver will win because…Nikola Jokic is the best player in the NBA, and he will be the best player in this series. Jokic outdueled Top 75 players LeBron James and Anthony Davis as the Nuggets swept the L.A. Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Jokic earned the second annual Magic Johnson Western Conference Finals MVP after averaging 27.8 ppg, 14.5 rpg, and 11.8 apg with shooting splits of .506/.471/.778. Jokic and Wilt Chamberlain are the only players in NBA playoff history who averaged a triple double in multiple series in the same postseason. Overall, Jokic is averaging 29.9 ppg, 13.3 rpg, and 10.3 apg in the playoffs, leading the Nuggets in all three categories while also leading the Nuggets in field goal percentage (.538), three point field goal percentage (.474), and blocked shots (.9 bpg). He ranks fourth in the NBA in 2023 playoff scoring, second in rebounding, first in assists, and 10th in three point field goal percentage. Jokic may not be a great one on one defender, but his size and savvy enable him to be a solid team defensive player.
Jamal Murray is having an outstanding postseason, ranking ninth in the league in scoring (27.7 ppg) with shooting splits of .480/.398/.925. He ranks first on the team in steals (1.7 spg) and second in assists (6.1 apg) as he continues to prove that his great playoff performance in 2020 was not "Bubble Murray" but rather "Playoff Murray."
The Nuggets' supporting cast is maligned at times because the team generally performs so much better with Jokic on the court than when Jokic is off of the court, but Denver is far from being just a two-player team. Michael Porter Jr. (14.6 ppg), Aaron Gordon (13.0 ppg), Bruce Brown (12.2 ppg), and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (11.7 ppg) are all double figure scorers who are shooting least .455 from the field in the playoffs.
The Nuggets' defense does not look overpowering statistically, but the Nuggets get enough stops to support their elite level offense that ranks second in playoff scoring (116.4 ppg), second in field goal percentage (.490), second in three point field goal percentage (.386), and third in assists (25.9 apg). The Miami Heat zone that befuddled and flustered the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals is not likely to meet with similar success versus the Nuggets.
Other things to consider: The Nuggets have been underrated throughout the season. They posted the best record in the Western Conference, but the "experts" were skeptical that they could beat the Phoenix Suns or the L.A. Lakers, two media darlings who had no answers for Jokic, Murray, and company. The Boston Celtics called this season "Unfinished Business," the Golden State Warriors acted like they could just flip a switch to relive past glory, and the Milwaukee Bucks expected to party like it's 2021--but the Lakers, Suns, Celtics, Warriors, and Bucks will all be watching the Nuggets in the NBA Finals.
Jokic's body type may not fit the preconceived notion of what an NBA superstar "should" look like, but he is a sublime scorer, rebounder, and passer. His defense is not great, but it is good enough, and his team follows his lead in that regard.
The Heat have had a great and remarkable playoff run, but up to this point their main obstacles have been a hobbled Giannis Antetokounmpo, a game but undersized Jalen Brunson, and a one-legged Jayson Tatum in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. They have not had to deal with anyone like Jokic, and they lack the size to do so effectively. Murray is a more dynamic guard than anyone the Heat have faced in the playoffs.
The Heat will fight until the end. They will win a couple games, possibly including one in Denver. They will never give up, and they will remain confident without being obnoxious. However, they will not win this series.
I predict that the Nuggets will win in six games.
Labels: Caleb Martin, Denver Nuggets, Jamal Murray, Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat, Nikola Jokic
posted by David Friedman @ 9:03 AM
Assessing Carmelo Anthony's Legacy
On Monday May 22, Carmelo Anthony officially announced his retirement. Anthony last played in the NBA on April 5, 2022, when he scored 10 points on 3-10 field goal shooting as his L.A. Lakers lost 121-110 to the Phoenix Suns. NBA fans could be forgiven for thinking that Anthony had already retired--but his departure from the game had not yet been made final and official. Anthony ranks 11th on the ABA/NBA career scoring list with 28,289 points, and he ranks 37th on the ABA/NBA career scoring average list (22.5 ppg). He won the 2012-13 scoring title (28.7 ppg), and he averaged a career-high 28.9 ppg in 2006-07, the first of two times that he ranked second in scoring. Anthony ranks 78th on the ABA/NBA playoff career scoring list with 1914 points, and he ranks 40th on the ABA/NBA playoff career scoring average list (23.1 ppg). Anthony participated in the playoffs in 13 of his 19 seasons.
Anthony made the All-Star team 10 times (2007-08, 2010-17). He played for six different franchises (Denver, New York, Oklahoma City, Houston, Portland, L.A. Lakers), and he earned All-Star selections with two of those teams (Denver and New York). Anthony made the All-NBA Second Team twice (2010, 2013), and he made the All-NBA Third Team four times (2006-07, 2009, 2012). He finished in the top five in MVP voting once (third in 2013). Anthony was selected to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
Anthony never ranked in the top 20 in a season in rebounding, assists, steals, blocked shots, or field goal percentage. His main skill set strength was that he could score from a variety of areas on the court. He was not a plus defender, and he was not close to elite in any skill set area other than scoring. Despite being a post up threat, Anthony never shot better than .492 from the field, and he shot worse than .450 from the field in 13 of his 19 seasons. The versatility that Anthony displayed while leading Syracuse to the 2003 NCAA title as a freshman did not manifest itself during Anthony's long NBA career.
Anthony spent the first seven seasons of his NBA career with the Denver
Nuggets before the Nuggets traded him to the New York Knicks near the
end of his eighth season (2010-11). Anthony earned seven of his All-Star
selections and two of his All-NBA selections as a Knick, but he never
led the Knicks past the second round of the playoffs. The Knicks won
just one playoff series during Anthony's time with the team, and
Anthony's overall playoff series record was 3-13. His teams went 28-55
in the playoffs as he shot .414 from the field.
After the Knicks went 31-51 in the 2016-17 season, they traded Anthony to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and a draft pick that later was used to select Mitchell Robinson. Anthony averaged a then career-low 16.2 ppg in his one season with the Thunder, who then traded him to the Atlanta Hawks as part of a multi-team deal on July 25, 2018. The Hawks released Anthony five days later, and he then signed with the Houston Rockets as a free agent.
In Carmelo Anthony and the Houston Rockets: Subtraction by Addition, I wrote the following after the Rockets signed Anthony:
Anthony won an NCAA title as a freshman at Syracuse when he was a
basketball prodigy who could physically overwhelm less talented players.
He won a record three Olympic gold medals as a member of Team USA, but
his contributions to those victories have been somewhat overhyped in the
mainstream media. I gave Anthony a C- minus grade in my Team USA report
card for the 2008 Olympics, noting, "Team USA outscored the opposition by 86 points overall when Anthony was
on the court and they outscored the opposition by just 25 points when
Anthony was on the court during medal round play. Among the five players
I tracked, Anthony is the only one who had a negative on court rating
for an entire game--and this happened twice: Angola outscored Team USA
46-42 when Anthony was on the court and in the gold medal game Spain
outscored Team USA 49-38 when Anthony was on the court. It is no
coincidence that Anthony was not in the game for the last eight minutes
of the fourth quarter of the gold medal game; throughout the Olympics,
Anthony was often on the bench when Team USA made its best runs and when
he was in games during such runs it was generally James, Wade and/or
Bryant who shouldered most of the load." Anthony performed similarly during the 2012 Olympics, after which I graded him B- and commented, "Anthony is a shoot first player--in both NBA and FIBA competition--who
can rebound when he is so inclined but is indifferent at best
defensively. When he shot well he provided instant offense but it is
noteworthy that when the score was close he was often on the bench; he
scored just eight points on 3-9 field goal shooting versus Spain in the
gold medal game as Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Chris
Paul did the heavy lifting." During the 2016 Olympics, Anthony again struggled in the gold medal game, finishing with just seven points on 3-7 field goal shooting.
So, the idea that Anthony is a proven winner based on his championships
won at the NCAA and FIBA levels but has just been in bad situations in
the NBA is a distortion, to say the least. The NCAA is obviously not
nearly as competitive as the NBA, so leading a team to an NCAA title is
no guarantee that a player can lead an NBA team to a title. Elite FIBA
play is more competitive than NCAA play--but Anthony was a role player
for Team USA behind, at various times, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin
Durant and Dwyane Wade.
After the Rockets parted ways with Anthony, I wrote an article titled Houston Rockets Abort Ill-Conceived Carmelo Anthony Experiment, and I explained why I was not surprised that Anthony proved to be a poor fit with the Rockets:
Who could have imagined that Carmelo Anthony would not be a good fit for
the Houston Rockets? Only anyone who understands basketball via skill
set analysis and informed observation, as opposed to relying on
"advanced basketball statistics" or reputation or hype or the
endorsements of some of Anthony's NBA buddies (including Chris Paul, who
has recently said that Anthony is not just a teammate but rather he is
"family").
Carmelo Anthony has demonstrated throughout his NBA career that he is a
poor leader--he has enjoyed his best individual and team success when
paired with one or more stronger personalities who ran the locker
room--and that he has a limited skill set: at his best, he was a very
potent one on one scorer from certain areas of the court, but he has
always been a poor defender, a reluctant passer and an inconsistent
rebounder who is more interested in offensive rebounding than defensive
rebounding. None of the above factors suggests that Anthony in his prime
could be the best player on an NBA championship team, and those issues
have been compounded in recent seasons by the undeniable fact that
Anthony retains unrealistic beliefs about his current capabilities even
as his one dimensional skill set displays continuous, significant
decline.
The above paragraph is what an "old school" scouting report summary of Anthony's game would look like. In my 2018-19 Western Conference Preview, I wrote, "Anthony has a
career-long pattern of rarely advancing very far in the playoffs; he is a
shoot-first (and second and third) player whose efficiency is declining
and whose willingness/ability to contribute in other areas decreases
each year. Even if they had stood pat, the Rockets would probably not
have won 65 games again; that was an aberration and they are due to
regress to the mean. Adding Anthony, though, will probably subtract
about 10 wins, while also making this team a less potent playoff force."
The Rockets started the season 4-6 as Anthony averaged career-lows in
scoring (13.4 ppg), free throw percentage (.682), assists (.5 apg) and
steals (.4 spg) while shooting just a bit above his career low field
goal percentage of .404 from last season (.405 this season). The
supposed immense challenge of playing alongside Russell Westbrook was
the excuse widely provided for the failure of the Carmelo Anthony
experiment in Oklahoma City last season, even though last season just
continued the steady downward statistical progression that Anthony has
suffered for several seasons. This season in Houston would be different,
we were sagely informed, because James Harden and Chris Paul would be
willing and able to get the ball to Anthony where he can be most
effective. Left out of that "analysis," however, was an answer to the
obvious question: Where, exactly, is an over the hill, step slow, one
dimensional gunner "most effective"?
This is just one illustration of the difference between Real Basketball Analytics
and what often is portrayed as basketball analytics. If you have
watched Anthony play throughout his career and if you understand
basketball then you can see that even Anthony in his prime probably
would not have been a great fit for Mike D'Antoni's offense that is
predicated on the point guard monopolizing the ball and everyone else
being ready to shoot when/if the point guard passes the ball; prime
Anthony was at his best when he could go one on one but that is not an
option for forwards in D'Antoni's offense.
On January 22, 2019, the Rockets traded Anthony to the Chicago Bulls, who waived Anthony on February 1, 2019. Anthony was out of the NBA until Portland signed him on November 19, 2019. Anthony averaged 15.4 ppg in 58 games with Portland during the 2019-20 season. He stayed with Portland for the 2020-21 season as a bench player, averaging 13.4 ppg.
In a March 15, 2021 article titled Assessing Carmelo Anthony's Current Level of Play and his Overall Legacy, I summarized Anthony's career:
Even during his prime, Anthony did not have an impact on winning
commensurate with his reputation. He was a big-time scorer--2013 scoring
champion, 14 straight seasons averaging at least 20 ppg--who was not
consistently efficient, who was not a great leader, and who was not a
great rebounder, passer, or defensive player. Anthony was a productive
scorer and he was not afraid to take pressure shots, so he spent most of
his career as his team's number one option. After his skills began to
decline, his coaches sought to reduce his role or possibly even use him
as a sixth man. Anthony publicly mocked the notion that he would be a
sixth man, so he had the same fate as other former All-Stars who did not
realistically appraise their current capabilities: he ended up out of
the league. To Anthony's credit, after a year of being out of the
league, he changed his mentality and accepted that in order to return to
the NBA he would have to be a third or fourth option and very probably
come off of the bench, which is his current role in Portland. The teams
that released Anthony were not wrong; Anthony was wrong, but now that he
has adopted a more realistic mindset he is able to be a role player.
Nothing that Anthony did with the Lakers in the final season of his career (2021-22) altered the above assessment; he averaged 13.3 ppg as a bench player for the Lakers.
Based on his NCAA title and FIBA resume alone Anthony would be inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame even without considering his 19 year NBA career, but it is more than a slight stretch to rank him as one of the top 75 NBA players of all-time or to anoint him as the best player in Nuggets history: the latter list was topped for a long time by Alex English, who in recent years has been surpassed by two-time regular season MVP Nikola Jokic. I would also rank David Thompson ahead of Anthony on the all-time Nuggets list.
In terms of both skill set and accomplishments, Anthony ranks well behind the premier forwards of his era, including LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Jayson Tatum, and Jimmy Butler.
Labels: Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, L.A. Lakers, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers
posted by David Friedman @ 12:41 AM
Resilient Heat Rout Celtics in Boston in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Finals
After the Miami Heat suffered a devastating game six loss at home to give up what had been a 3-0 Eastern Conference Finals lead versus the defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics, it would have been easy to count out the Heat in game seven at Boston--but, to paraphrase the best line of the previous NFL season, people may have written the Heat off but they didn't write back, routing the Celtics 103-84 to earn their second trip to the NBA Finals in the past four seasons. Jimmy Butler scored a game-high 28 points while grabbing seven rebounds and passing for six assists; in recognition of his all-around excellence during the series (24.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 6.2 apg, 2.5 spg), Butler won the second annual Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals
MVP. Caleb Martin scored a playoff career-high 26 points and fell just one vote short of winning the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. He shot 10-16 from the field, tied for the team lead with 10 rebounds, and scored seven more points than any Celtic. Bam Adebayo added 12 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists. The Heat shot 14-28 (.500) from three point range, which is a credit to them but also an indictment of the Celtics' defense. Five Heat players hit at least two three pointers, with Martin (four) and Butler (three) leading the way. The Heat became the first eighth seeded team to reach the NBA Finals since the New York Knicks in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, while the Celtics failed to become the first NBA team to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.
The Celtics failed to score at least 90 points in a game for the first time this season; they had their worst offensive output at the worst possible time. Jaylen Brown finished with 19 points on 8-23 field goal shooting while compiling eight rebounds, five assists, and eight turnovers. Only a field goal that cut the Heat's lead from 23 to 21 with 4:56 remaining in the fourth quarter prevented Brown from posting a "Harden" (a playoff game in which a player has more turnovers than field goals made). Brown was one of three Celtics to score in double figures. Derrick White, whose last second putback won game six, scored 18 points. Jayson Tatum, who erupted for a record 51 points in Boston's game seven win against Philadelphia, scored 14 points on 5-13 field goal shooting while grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds. He was clearly hobbled and limited by a sprained left ankle that he suffered on Boston's first possession of the game when he landed on Gabe Vincent's foot after driving to the hoop. Tatum's injury is unfortunate but it is also part of the sport, as Tatum noted after the game--and it could be argued that if the Celtics had managed to win one of the three games that they lost earlier in this series then there would not have been a seventh game in which Tatum got injured. Tatum gutted it out to play 41 minutes.
It should be remembered that the Heat ranked among the league leaders in games missed due to injury this season, and they won the Eastern Conference Finals without the services of Tyler Herro (their third leading scorer in the 2022-23 regular season) and Victor Oladipo, a two-time former All-Star who averaged 10.7 ppg during the regular season and 11.5 ppg in two playoff games as a key reserve before suffering a season-ending torn patellar tendon. Herro and Oladipo are not in the same class as Tatum, and the Heat had time to figure out how to survive without them while Boston lost Tatum in an elimination game, but the point is that injuries can strike any team at any time.
Even though Brown's eight turnovers stick out, the Celtics only had three more turnovers than the Heat (15-12). The Heat outrebounded the Celtics 42-40, but that slim margin did not lead to a 19 point blowout. The one statistical category in which the Heat dominated the Celtics was field goal percentage (.488 to .390), and specifically three point field goal percentage (.500 to .214). Throughout the series, the Celtics were at their best--both in the games that they won, and in the segments of their losses when they had the lead--when they attacked the paint to score, which resulted in high percentage shots in the paint, free throws, and wide open three pointers when the Heat's defense collapsed. The Celtics ranked second in the league in both three point field goals made and three point field goals attempted while ranking sixth in three point field goal percentage, and their three point field goal attempts in game seven were in line with their regular season per game average (42.6), but there is a difference between creating open three point shots off of paint attacks versus just jacking up three pointers; also, in this matchup the Celtics enjoyed a size advantage and they had the advantage of having multiple playmakers, so instead of looking like the Houston Rockets in game seven of the 2018 Western Conference Finals the Celtics should have used their advantages in size and playmaking to create better shots. Obviously, Miami's defense played a role in the Celtics' poor shooting, but the Celtics won three games in this series by attacking the paint against that same defense. This is not an "adjustment" or an "in game adjustment," because it is not a new strategy or concept; it is the opposite: the Celtics should have stuck with the game plan that had been most successful throughout the series and throughout the season. The problem is not that the Celtics attempted 42 three pointers, nor is the problem merely that they had a bad shooting game; the problem is the quality of the shots that the Celtics created.
Also, the Celtics ranked fifth in the league in defensive field goal percentage (.463) and fourth in the league in three point defensive field goal percentage (.345), so if their game seven defense had been up to par they still would have been in striking distance at the end of the game instead of losing by 19 points. The current era is often portrayed as one in which shooting and floor spacing dominate, but attacking the paint and playing consistent defense are still the two most important ingredients in a championship recipe.
The NBA is often described as a fourth quarter league, but the reality is that many NBA games are decided in the first quarter--or, at the very least, the parameters of the final outcome are established in the early going. Here, the Heat led 22-15 after a first quarter in which the Celtics shot 6-23 (.261) from the field and committed four turnovers. The Heat did not shoot a high percentage from the field (.417), but they made it clear that the Celtics would have to scratch and claw just to obtain open shots. By halftime, the Heat led 52-41, and they never trailed the rest of the way.
It is fascinating to examine contrasting narratives arising out of similar facts. If the Celtics and Heat had traded wins throughout the series prior to game seven, then the narrative would be that this was a great series featuring evenly matched teams, and there would be much talk about the "chess match" between two coaches making adjustments both in games and in between games--but because Miami raced to a 3-0 lead, a narrative took hold that rookie Boston Coach Joe Mazzulla is not the right man for the job. After the Celtics won three straight games, the people who prematurely called for Mazzulla to be fired scrambled to devise a narrative that fit both the first three games and the next three games while also praying that the Celtics lost game seven so that they could rehabilitate their original narrative.
In contrast, last season these same teams--featuring mostly the same core rotation players--also contested a seven game Eastern Conference Finals, but because neither team took a 3-0 lead we did not hear as much of the "coach is not making enough adjustments" narrative. Boston won game seven at Miami last season, leading wire to wire, though the final margin was much closer than the final margin this time. Both last year and this year each team lost multiple games at home during the Eastern Conference Finals; are the home losses a sign of bad coaching or loss of focus, or are they just an indicator that these teams are evenly matched and they are both tough-minded enough to win on the road?
Boston and Miami have contested 14 Eastern Conference Finals games over the last two seasons and the tally is 7-7 with each team winning one series--but we are supposed to believe that one team lacks focus and has a bad coach, while the other team is perfect. I don't mean to take anything away from the Heat--they are fantastic--but it is odd that there is such a strong narrative that it is not enough to praise the Heat without attacking the Celtics. Instead of a narrative depicting the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals as a classic clash of two different playing styles, we are fed a narrative that portrays the Heat heroically while blasting the Celtics. It is human nature to attempt to explain a sequence of events as part of one large narrative, but in the real world things are rarely that simple; the Heat players and Coach Erik Spoelstra deserve praise for winning the series this year after losing to the Celtics last year, but the Celtics' loss this season is not necessarily a sign that the team is burdened with a fatal flaw or a set of fatal flaws: if the two greatest teams ever coached by the two greatest coaches met in a seven game series, it would not be correct or fair to focus more on what the losing team did poorly than on what the winning team did well.
The Heat have reached the NBA Finals more often since 2006 (seven times) than any other franchise. Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal led Miami to the 2006 NBA championship, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh formed a superteam that led the Heat to four straight NBA Finals and back to back titles, and now Jimmy Butler has a chance to win his first NBA title in his second NBA Finals appearance with the Heat after losing to the L.A. Lakers in the 2020 NBA Finals in the Orlando "bubble."
Labels: Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat
posted by David Friedman @ 8:19 AM
Celtics Beat Heat in Game Six on Derrick White's Buzzer Beating Putback
Derrick White tipped in Marcus Smart's missed desperation three pointer as time expired, lifting the Boston Celtics to a 104-103 win and forcing a game seven on Monday that seemed improbable less than a week ago when Miami humiliated Boston 128-102 to take a 3-0 series lead. Jayson Tatum scored a game-high 31 points, grabbed a team-high 12 rebounds, and dished for five assists. This was his fourth 30-10 performance in an elimination game, breaking a tie with Larry Bird and Kevin McHale for the most such games in Celtics history. Tatum shot 8-22 from the field, but he made all 15 of his free throws. Tatum's size and versatility have been key for the Celtics in their three wins. Jaylen Brown had 26 points, 10 rebounds, and three assists. Marcus Smart added 21 points on 7-15 field goal shooting, including 4-11 from three point range (the shot that is often available when the Heat's zone defense tilts toward Tatum's paint attacks). White had 11 points and a team-high six assists.
Butler had a team-high 24 points, plus 11 rebounds, and eight assists, but he shot just 5-21 from the field. He made three straight free throws with 3.0 seconds left in the fourth quarter to provide what would have been the winning margin had White not scored at the buzzer. Butler scored 15 fourth quarter points on 3-5 field goal shooting and 8-10 free throw shooting, but the Heat need for him to be that aggressive in seeking out his shot for the whole game; TNT's Stan Van Gundy mentioned that at times Butler seemed intimidated by Boston's size. Caleb Martin had 21 points and a game-high 15 rebounds. Gabe Vincent scored 15 points but he shot just 6-18 from the field, and he had no assists in 41 minutes. Duncan Robinson scored 13 points off of the bench. Bam Adebayo had 11 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists, but he shot just 4-16 from the field.
Aesthetically, this game was not pretty--but it was beautiful from the standpoint of two teams playing hard, and of two teams playing physical basketball in an elimination game. The Celtics shot .436 from the field, including .200 from three point range--their worst long distance shooting percentage in any game this season. The Heat shot even worse from the field (.355), but they shot 14-30 (.467) on three pointers. Each team had 47 rebounds. The Celtics made six more free throws (29-23), but the Heat committed seven fewer turnovers (12-5). The Celtics won despite their poor shooting because they attacked the
paint on offense, and they defended the paint well on defense. Although the statistics and the final score indicate that this was a closely contested game, the reality is that the Celtics led from the 3:18 mark in the first quarter until Butler's tip in put the Heat up 83-82 with 7:57 remaining in the fourth quarter. A furious fourth quarter rally by the Heat--keyed by Butler--put the outcome in doubt, but it would be wrong to say that the Celtics won just because of a lucky play: if anything, the Heat were fortunate to even have a chance to win at the end after being outplayed for most of the game.
It would also be wrong to say that the Heat had a defensive breakdown on the final possession; as Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra explained in his postgame press conference, the Heat's defense on the fateful final inbounds play was designed to deny an easy pass to Tatum, and the Heat accomplished this by having Max Strus overplay Tatum. That gave White a path to the offensive boards, but only a perfect bounce right to White could have hurt Miami in the compressed time frame of that play--and that is what happened. If the Heat could choose Boston's final shot off of an inbounds play, a contested three pointer by Smart would be their choice over a shot by Tatum.
If this series had reached a 3-3 tie by a different path, the narrative would be about two well-coached teams that play hard battling to a standoff, with the Celtics having game seven at home based on being the more consistent team over the 82 game regular season schedule--but because Miami won three games in a row before Boston won three games in a row, we have been subjected to idiots calling for Boston Coach Joe Mazzulla to be fired, and those same idiots will probably pontificate about all of the alleged "adjustments" the Celtics made to get back in the series; as I have discussed repeatedly, in-game "adjustments"--and "adjustments" in general--are overrated and overemphasized by people who don't understand the NBA game. The reality is that the Heat--who had the best record in the Eastern Conference last season, when they reached the Eastern Conference Finals--are capable of playing better than their regular season record suggests, and they played harder than the Celtics for the first three games, but the Celtics' best game is better than the Heat's best game, so the Celtics have more of a margin for error if both teams play hard. "Playing harder" is Jeff Van Gundy's favorite "adjustment."
The Celtics are just the fourth team to tie a series 3-3 after trailing 3-0, but the Celtics are the first of those four teams to have the benefit of playing game seven at home. The Celtics enter the series finale with confidence based on (1) being the better team on paper, (2) winning the three most recent games in this series, and (3) enjoying matchup advantages at both ends of the court because of their size and versatility--but the Heat enter the series finale with confidence based on (1) being good enough to beat the Celtics in the first three games of this series (including the first two games in Boston), (2) having a great closer in Jimmy Butler, and (3) having great team unity forged by belief in the coaching staff's game plans (overall strategy, not "adjustments") and belief in each other. In short, it is fair for an objective observer to state that game six at home was Miami's game seven (their best chance to win this series), but it is also reasonable for the Heat to subjectively feel confident even if the objective reality suggests that the Celtics should be favored in game seven.
I picked Boston to win this series, and even though I understood that a Boston victory was unlikely after the Celtics fell into a 3-0 hole I also felt that if the Celtics played like they did in their game four victory then Boston is capable of becoming the first NBA team to win a playoff series after trailing 3-0.
Labels: Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat
posted by David Friedman @ 2:56 AM
