Celtics turn off the Heat

Paul Pierce's offense and defense were huge for the Celtics against the Heat

The talk coming into the re-match between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics was how the Miami Heat have come together in the past few weeks. Since losing to the Celtics, all the public has heard is about how much the Heat have started to mesh, how Lebron James has become more of a facilitator for their basketball team and how the Heat have been looking forward to getting revenge on their home turf.

The Boston Celtics had other ideas as they beat the Miami Heat in Miami 112-107. They proved once again where the Eastern Conference runs through. While the score got close at the end, the game never really seemed in doubt. The Heat never had the lead in the game and were down double digits from the second quarter on. Of course, the Celtics had to have their normal fourth quarter scare as Lebron James tried to bully his way to a comeback (22 free-throws), but the Celtics as a team held on for the win.

And the word team must be emphasized when it came to this Celtics win. Sure, Ray Allen is going to get all the hype in this game for this performance (35 points, hit his first seven threes before Reggie Miller and TNT threw the jinx on him) but make no mistake. This Celtics proved once again that they are a team in the truest sense of the word. Rajon Rondo (8/3/16, one posterization of Chris Bosh that caused our living room to erupt) played the point guard position brilliantly once again. Paul Pierce filled the bucket with 25 points and exemplary defense and Kevin Garnett put in a fantastic 16 point, 13 rebound performance and made Chris Bosh his bitch. Hell, even Nate Robinson came up with a fantastic game tonight, scoring 12 points in 11 minutes off the bench. Everyone, from Ray Allen to Semih Erden contributed to the Celtics win tonight.

It was also an interesting game in this sense. Besides the aforementioned Rajon Rondo dunk and Ray Allen shooting the lights out of the ball, nothing really was special  or relatively exciting about this game. That’s not a bad thing. The Celtics played solid basketball and the Miami Heat couldn’t do anything about it. Sure, they had Lebron James who went into “I can get any foul I want to” mode and finished with a 35/10/9, but I really wasn’t impressed. He received a lot of ticky-tack fouls and for the most part the Celtics played great defense on him. He only went 9/21 from the field and I will take that any day of the week. Outside of Udonis Haslam (9-10, 21 points) nobody on the Heat impressed me as a basketball fan. Chris Bosh was soft as usual, Dwayne Wade still can’t figure out the Celtics (8 points) and Eddie House stopped playing well after the first quarter. I just feel like nobody from players 5-10 on the Heat could make the rotation of any other contender. They are not a good team right now, which becomes more and more apparent when they play a good team like the Boston Celtics

More importantly, the Eastern Conference still goes through the Boston Celtics. The Heat could have stepped up and proved that they have gotten better since opening night, but they just didn’t do it. The Boston Celtics have gotten better since opening night. Everyone contributes to the winning effort and one guy always seems to step up a little bit above the rest. The Boston Celtics are the still the team to beat in the East, and that won’t change until somebody proves otherwise.

~Benti

P.S – Highlight of the night

“Holy smokes! Did he get high!”