Still Alive: Celtics Down Heat In Game 3

The teams will meet in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals on Sunday.

For more on these teams, visit Heat blog Peninsula is Mightier and CelticsBlog. To stay up to date on all of the happenings in the 2012 NBA playoffs, head over to SB Nation’s dedicated NBA hub.

Essentially, here’s how things broke down.

-From 12:00 to 8:51, the Heat cut a 24-point lead to 19. Garnett went out at this point.

-From 8:51 to 6:14, the Heat cut a 19-point lead to 11. Garnett then came back into the game.

-From 6:14 to 1:39, the Heat cut a 11-point lead to 10. Garnett was in the whole time.

Somehow, this is an 11-point game. Fueled by hot three-point shooting from Mike Miller, the Heat, despite playing LeBron James at center for the entire stretch, are back in this thing.

The problem for Boston: with Brandon Bass in, someone’s going to be open beyond the arc. As it turns out, that was Miller. There’s a reason Kevin Garnett was inserted back into the game quickly.

Alongside Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, Mike Miller and Shane Battier.

You cannot divide anything by the number of minutes James played at center this season. (That means zero, for people who don’t get bad, convoluted jokes).

Because the Heat have two of the best basketball playmakers in the world, no lead is ever entirely safe until the final buzzer has sounded. But you have to feel good about their chances of Boston avoiding a 3-0 series deficit and winning tonight.

UPDATE: OH GOD I know Haslem’s coming after us now.

Well, not completely, but in one key area: baseline cuts. One of the major things Avery Bradley did to the Heat in the regular season was occupy defenders with hard backdoor dives to the rim. Even if he didn’t get the ball, he made himself a threat, so the Heat had to attend to him.

The Celtics had been missing that element since Bradley got hurt. In Friday’s Game 3 against the Heat, they’ve gotten it back with Daniels. He’s slid along the baseline for two layups cutting backdoor, and one other time, his cut prevented Dwyane Wade from double-teaming Ray Allen near the hoop.

Want to know why the Celtics’ defense has been so successful? Everyone on the Heat is flattening out and trying to space the floor instead of making aggressive basket cuts. It’s no wonder the Celtics have been able to load up on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

Aside from the early transition baskets Miami got early in this game, the Celtics defense has been exceptional.

And the crowd goes wild!!!

(Well, not really. But still, I’m sure they’re finally happy).

It’s shades of 2008, really. That was the first year then-Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau introduced the strongside zone defense, designed to take away isolations by flooding so much defensive attention to the ball. The Celtics have adopted that again to counter all the isolations and 1-4 flat sets the Heat keep trying to run.

Naturally, Miami’s offense, after a fast start, is having major problems.

Rajon Rondo

Keyon Dooling

Ray Allen

Marquis Daniels

Brandon Bass

The Miami Heat still haven’t scored this quarter, which is pretty amazing given that they scored 28 points in the first quarter.

What changed? As crazy as it sounds, Keyon Dooling and Marquis Daniels have done a great job pressuring the ball, forcing the Heat to play too much one-on-one.

Fun gimmick, though.

One thing that Doc Rivers said between Games 1 and 2 is that the Celtics needed to get Kevin Garnett more shots. So far, mission accomplished. Garnett is 4-4 and has nine points, as the Celtics lead by four.

The Celtics are putting a clinic on how to get the ball inside against pressure. On a recent play, they tried entering the ball from the wing, but the Heat fronted the post and prevented the pass. The Celtics then swung the ball to the middle of the floor and tossed in a beautifully-timed lob for a layup.

All series, the Boston Celtics have surrendered too many easy buckets in transition. It’s especially strange to see because the Celtics are known to favor dropping guys back instead of crashing for offensive rebounds. But in this series, they’ve crashed the boards too heavily and gotten lackadaisical with their assignments.

The Heat already have two transition layups off made Celtics shots early in Game 3. First, Mario Chalmers danced right around an unaware Brandon Bass for a layup. Then, LeBron James ran untouched up the left side and glided in for a three-point play.

Rajon Rondo is known to do really strange things to the ball if his team wins the opening tip, but I don’t think he’s ever done this.

Real nice of Rondo to show support to the U.S. National Team after their 4-1 loss to Brazil earlier in the week.

Now, the Celtics must respond in Friday’s Game 3 in order to save their season. What kind of changes can they make in their game-plan to get it done? SB Nation’s Ben Golliver discussed that, as well as Game 2, in this video.

As Golliver notes in the video, the Heat “know they took a very, very good punch from Boston” to survive Game 2. It’d be easy for them to think that was the best punch the Celtics can provide in this series. We’ll see if that ends up being the case.