Eastern Conference Finals Preview
The Boston Celtics and Miami Heat square off in a rematch of last season's ECF. Will the Celtics win again, or will the Heat get their revenge?
The Boston Celtics and Miami Heat will face off in the most surprising Conference Finals rematch in recent memory. In the old playoff format, this would have been a first-round two-seven match-up, but the Heat’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks in the play-in game forced them into a do-or-die game against the Bulls for the eighth seed.
While the Celtics making it back to the NBA’s final four came as no surprise, the Heat clawing and cutting their way back to the cusp of the NBA Finals is. The Heat, frankly, were maybe the worst team to make the play-in tournament. They had the worst net rating (-0.3) and the second-worst simple rating out of the 20 teams to make the playoffs and play-in. According to regular season metrics, this wasn’t a dangerous team lurking beneath a poor record, this was a bad team that had overperformed in close games to sneak into the big dance, and their demolition at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks in the seven-eight play-in game only reinforced that thought.
However, none of that matters once the playoffs start, and the Heat took advantage of the season resetting. They upset the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in five games and then dispatched the New York Knicks in six to produce the third-best net rating of the playoffs at +4.6.
The Celtics, on the other hand, were just plain dominant all year long. They posted by far the league’s best net rating (+6.5) and the playoff’s second-best net rating (+7.4). When they’re clicking on all cylinders, they look unstoppable, and their greatest adversary appears to be apathy.
The Stars
The difference between the Celtics and Heat doesn’t lie in the quality of their stars but in the quality of the rest of their roster. Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, all things considered, are just as good as, if not better than, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Heat’s duo bested the Celtics’ duo in a host of advanced metrics during the regular season.
The On-Off net ratings further reinforce what the metrics suggest. With Butler and Adebayo on the court, the Heat posted a net rating of +4.22, but when they were both off the court, it plummeted to -3.41. Meanwhile, when Tatum and Brown were on the court, the Celtics produced a surprisingly poor +5.74 net rating (it’s unusual for a team’s two best players to post a lower net rating when on the court than what the team managed for the entire season), but a solid +1.31 when they both sat. Bam and Butler made the Heat +7.63 points per 100 possessions better, while the Jays only made the Celtics +4.43.
The Celtics and Heat certainly have star players in Jayson Tatum and Jimmy Butler, and they maybe have a star in Jaylen Brown and Bam Adebayo, but the difference is that the Celtics have an aggregate third star player. Of players that played 800 minutes, the Celtics had eight players post a BPM of 1.0 or better, which doesn’t include Grant Williams or Marcus Smart, while the Heat had two, and only four players posted a positive BPM. Even if you’re dubious of BPM as a statistic, the sheer gulf in these rosters from player three to nine functionally gives the Celtics another star player.
Jimmy Butler is the best player in this series, but the gap between him and Jayson Tatum is not enough to offset the Celtics’ depth. Stars get all the credit, but the best teams in the league also have tremendous depth.
The Data
There’s no way around it. The Celtics are massive favorites in this series. They were better all season and have been better in the playoffs. The Heat were truly excellent against the Milwaukee Bucks, but that was primarily a product of Giannis getting hurt, Jimmy Butler going god-mode, and them hitting 45% of their threes after only hitting 34.4% in the regular season en route to a 124 offensive rating for the series. Reality came back with a vengeance against the Knicks; Butler was slowed by an ankle sprain, although he was still excellent, and the Heat’s 3-point shooting came crashing down to 30.6% and brought their offensive rating with it (104.3). In truth, the Heat didn’t so much win the series as the Knicks lost it.
The Celtics’ playoff performances have been much maligned, but if you look beyond the wins and losses, it’s clear how close they were to a truly dominant-looking run. Of their five losses, three were by four points or less, and of their eight wins, five were by 12 or more points. Simply put, a +15.125 margin of victory compared to a -5.4 margin of defeat shows just how good the Celtics are.
A crucial battle in the series will be how the Celtics deal with the Heat’s ability to get shots near the rim. During the regular season, the Heat were one of the most rim (0-3 feet) averse teams in the regular season, only taking 19.9% of their shots in the area. However, in the playoffs, they’ve seen that number jump to 22.8%, even as the league average dropped from 24.6% in the regular season to 19.4% in the playoffs.
The Celtics have a myriad of ways to counter the Heat’s newfound rim attack. They could stack strong perimeter defenders to stop drives at their source, or they could go to their rediscovered double-big lineup of Al Horford and Robert Williams III to deter and punish anyone foolish enough to challenge the paint. If the Heat’s 3-point shooting is closer to their regular season mark, then they’re going to need to continue to get shots at the rim to generate efficient offense.
Final Thoughts
My final thoughts are simple. The Heat are lucky to be in the Conference Finals. The Heat never beat themselves, which is how they consistently punch above their weight in the playoffs, but the Celtics are so much better than the Heat that this should be a short series. The only reason I say should is because of the respect I have for Jimmy Butler to be the best player in the world for a seven-game stretch. The truth is, even if Butler goes nuts, the Heat are going to need another outlier 3-point shooting performance and the Celtics struggling on offense to come out ahead. The Celtics are the best team in the NBA, and that has been true for the last 18 months, while the Heat have been middling since the start of the season. Remember, this should have been a first-round matchup.