Heat (15-15) at Celtics (26-7) Game #34 12/20/17

[FLCeltsFan]

at 
Miami Heat (15-15) at Boston Celtics (26-7)
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
7:30 PM ET
Regular Season Game [HASH]34 Home Game [HASH]17
TV: NBCSB, FS Sun, NBA-LP 754(DTV)/753(xfinity)
Radio: 98.5 Sports Hub, 790 The Ticket
TD Garden


Probable Starting Matchups
Point Guard
vs
Kyrie Irving vs Goran Dragic

Shooting Guard
vs
Jaylen Brown vs Dion Waiters

Small Forward
vs
Jayson Tatum vs Josh Richardson

Power Forward
vs
Al Horford vs Kelly Olynyk

Center
vs
Aron Baynes vs Bam Adebayo

Reserves
Shane Larkin
Abdel Nader
Semi Ojeleye
Guerschon Yabusele
Terry Rozier
Marcus Smart

Injuries
Gordon Hayward (ankle) out
Daniel Theis (nose) out
Marcus Morris (knee) out

Two Way Players
Kadeem Allen
Jabari Bird

Head Coach
Brad Stevens



Reserves
Wayne Ellington
Udonis Haslem
Tyler Johnson
AJ Hammons
Jordan Mickey

Injuries
Rodney McGruder (tibia) out
Okaro White (foot) out
Hassan Whiteside (knee) out
James Johnson (ankle) out
Justise Winslow (knee) doubtful
Goran Dragic (elbow) questionable

Two Way Players
Derrick Walton, Jr
Matt Williams, Jr

Coach
Erik Spoelstra

Game Notes
The Celtics return home after a successful 2 game road trip to host the Miami Heat. This is the third and final game between these two teams this season. The Celtics won 96-90 when they met on October 28 in Miami and they lost 104-98 when they again played in Miami on November 22. This is the earliest that these two teams have ever wrapped up their series.

The Celtics are looking for their third straight win. They are 7-3 in their last 10 games and are 13-3 at home. The Heat are 5-5 in their last 10 games and 9-8 on the road. They are looking to get back on track after losing their last game to the Atlanta Hawks 110-104.

The Heat have been hampered with injuries in recent games. Hassan Whiteside is out once again with a sore knee. He missed the Heat's loss in the first game but did play in their win in the second game. James Johnson (ankle), Rodney McGruder (tibia), Okaro White (foot) are also out for this game.

Justise Winslow is listed as doubtful with an ankle injury. Goran Dragic is listed as questionable with a sore elbow, but he has stated that he is going to try to play. For the Celtics, Daniel Theis had his nose rebroken on Tuesday and is expected to miss this game. Marcus Morris (knee) and Gordon Hayward (ankle) remain out.

The Celtics are just 2.5 games up on the Cavaliers who continue to play very well in spite of their loss to the Bucks on Tuesday. The Raptors are just 3.5 games back of the Celtics. The Heat have slipped to 1 game out of playoff contention. With their series tied at 1 game each, this game will give bragging rights to the winner between these two rivals.

Key Matchups
vs
Kyrie Irving vs Goran Dragic
Dragic is averaging 16.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.4 assists. He scored 27 points in each of their last two meetings. Kyrie will need to make him work for his points and also make him work on defense. Dragic is listed as questionable with a sore elbow but he has said that he plans to try to play.

vs
Jaylen Brown vs Dion Waiters
Waiters is averaging 14.8 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists and he is capable of having a big game if not kept in check. Jaylen will need to defend him well and try not to get into foul trouble in this game as the Celtics need him out there.

Honorable Mention
Al Horford vs Kelly Olynyk
Olynyk is averaging 9.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. Al has had experience guarding Kelly in practice, and vice versa. Hopefully Al can can keep Kelly from having a big game from the perimeter and on the other end, make Kelly work on defense.

Keys to the Game
Defense
Defense wins games. The Celtics still have the best defense in the league but they have let it slip in recent games, whether because of their brutal schedule or they just aren't working as hard. The Celtics are still tops in the league allowing 98.5 points per game while the Heat are allowing 102.2 points per game. The Celtics need to continue to make defense a priority and concentrate on keeping the Heat's offense off balance.

Rebound
The Heat are averaging 41.0 rebounds per game while the Celtics are averaging 44.1 rebounds per game. Crashing the boards will give the Celtics extra possessions as well as keeping the Heat from getting fast breaks and second chance points. As with the defense, the Celtics have been slipping on the boards recently. Rebounding takes effort and the Celtics have to outwork the Heat on the boards.

Be Aggressive
The Celtics have to be aggressive in going to the basket and not settle for jumpers, especially if the jumpers aren't falling. They have to dive for loose balls and be aggressive in crashing the boards. They can't afford to slack off or to allow the Heat to play harder than them. They have to be the team that wants it more.

Play 48 Minutes- The Celtics have been in the habit of playing well just half of the game. They either fall behind by double digits and then have to play extra hard to get back into the game or they get a big lead and then pretty much stop playing to allow their opponents back into the game (see Pacers, Indiana). They need to play hard on both ends of the court from the opening tip to the final buzzer.

X-Factors
Home Game - The Celtics are back at home after two road games. The Celtics have been playing well at home with a record of 13-3. They need to continue to draw energy from the home crowd and make it difficult for other teams to win at the Garden.

Revenge Factor - There are revenge factors on both sides of this game. The series is tied at 1 game each so the winner of this game wins the series. Kelly Olynyk and Jordan Mickey will want to beat their former team and both teams will be motivated to avenge the earlier loss. Also, the Heat win ended the Celtics 16 game win streak and they certainly will want to get back at the Heat for that.

Fatigue Factor - The Celtics are in the midst of a very tough stretch of games. This is their 8th game in 13 days with 5 of those games on the road. They have had 2 sets of back to back games and two sets of 3 games in 4 nights. This is yet again the first of back to back games. The players have not had any chance to practice and they may be getting fatigued. On the other hand, both teams are missing key players with the Heat more short handed than the Celtics. That puts extra work on the remaining players. Fatigue may be a factor for both teams.

[jmost]

Waited too long to play with intensity and got burned again. It's now officially a team flaw.

[mev17]

Absolute garbage. We can't even handle mediocre teams on our home floor. The Indiana win was a gift by the Pacers, and we walked away thinking we could win no matter how bad we play.

[mev17]

To add insult to injury, the Lakers pull off the upset in Houston (Kuzma 38 points) to move further away from us getting a lottery pick. Not a good night at all.

[Roadrunner]

Irving ISO is 60-40 in the clutch. Unfortunately, we got the 40.

[mev17]

We did have a chance to pull it out in the end, but what bothers me is, even in some of our wins, we have spent half or more of the game being absolutely dominated - and by some not-very-good teams. Chicago had us down 30 before we scored 7 meaningless points, Memphis outscored us by 21 in the second and third quarters combined, Indiana within the same half goes from down 19 to up 5 (24 point swing), Miami outscores us by 20 during the 3rd and early 4th quarters. We can't have any success when we aren't even competitive for such long stretches at a time - and as JMost pointed out above, it is becoming a team characteristic.

[jmost]

And we were playing not just a mediocre team, but a mediocre team without most of its best players. How much longer can Trader Danny stay away from the trigger finger?

[Roadrunner]

I said this in a prior post (a game BOS won) that I was concerned that Irving/Horford/Brown/Tatum all have to have good games for a win. Also, throughout the years including this team, home court does not seem very effective and BOS players better on the road.

[mev17]

Another bad loss. Up by 9 in the 3rd quarter to down by 11 - another 20 point swing against us. These miserable dry spells where we get steam-rolled are killing us. We are just not a very good team right now.

[Roadrunner]

Dec 21, 2017 22:28:38 GMT -5 mev17 said:

Another bad loss. Up by 9 in the 3rd quarter to down by 11 - another 20 point swing against us. These miserable dry spells where we get steam-rolled are killing us. We are just not a very good team right now.

The team had the same dry spells last year when IT went to the bench. The difference between this year, and last year is that BOS should win every game now.

[afceltic]

Dec 21, 2017 23:53:42 GMT -5 Roadrunner said:

Dec 21, 2017 22:28:38 GMT -5 mev17 said:

Another bad loss. Up by 9 in the 3rd quarter to down by 11 - another 20 point swing against us. These miserable dry spells where we get steam-rolled are killing us. We are just not a very good team right now.

The team had the same dry spells last year when IT went to the bench. The difference between this year, and last year is that BOS should win every game now.

Part of this loss was not having Jaylen and therefore too much Smart. When Smart has to play extended minutes we will go in droughts because he is offensively retarded. Another part is scheduling of course, but the final piece is that Kyrie is shooting too much, especially the 3 ball. He was 6-15 today and at least 5 of those should have gone to Tatum as he is a more efficient shooter than Kyrie is. Plus when he iso's we stop moving and watch him make his move and lack of ball movement is what killed us last year.

And I forgot one big part is that AL was terrible for the second game in a row. He allowed the man bun to dominate us and now Beasley today. If only we could somehow include him and Smart in a trade for the unibrow.

[Roadrunner]

Afceltic, I agree. Speaking of scheduling, I noticed the same pattern in PHI who BOS plays in London. They have played alot of games, won early, now losing of late.

[afceltic]

Dec 22, 2017 18:06:51 GMT -5 Roadrunner said:

Afceltic, I agree. Speaking of scheduling, I noticed the same pattern in PHI who BOS plays in London. They have played alot of games, won early, now losing of late.

Boston will have played 40 games or half their season by the time new years comes. Houston will be at 35 games and GSW will be at 37 along with Cleveland. Then if flip flops in January as we get a bunch of rest after one quick back to back in January.

The frustrating part for me is when we play Houston on the 27th we will be on the second night of a back to back, while they won't have played in three days. It is situations like this that make the regular season irrelevant when trying to compare results and to predict what will happen in the postseason.

[Roadrunner]

Dec 22, 2017 20:22:44 GMT -5 afceltic said:

Dec 22, 2017 18:06:51 GMT -5 Roadrunner said:

Afceltic, I agree. Speaking of scheduling, I noticed the same pattern in PHI who BOS plays in London. They have played alot of games, won early, now losing of late.

Boston will have played 40 games or half their season by the time new years comes. Houston will be at 35 games and GSW will be at 37 along with Cleveland. Then if flip flops in January as we get a bunch of rest after one quick back to back in January.

The frustrating part for me is when we play Houston on the 27th we will be on the second night of a back to back, while they won't have played in three days. It is situations like this that make the regular season irrelevant when trying to compare results and to predict what will happen in the postseason.

I feel very good about the C's post season. Irving is the real deal; Horford is a solid second all-star; Brown & Tatum are young guns. Bench, meh.

[jmost]

The frustrating thing about the bench is that they all show occasional flashes of the ability to contribute, but none of them can be counted on consistently, especially to score. Maybe things would (and will) look different with GH back, and Morris (who is here for another year after this one) healthy, but I think we still need another guy who can really run the offense, and another guard who can really shoot.

FLCeltsFan always say the defense wins games, but the problem with our bench isn't that they can't play D; it's that they can't score consistently. Smart, TR, Ojeleye, Theis all play pretty good D, but none score well.

I had high hopes for Semi based on his seemingly effortless 3's in preseason, but he's temporarily (I hope) lost his shot. He's really impressed me with his ability to guard multiple positions and rarely get beaten. If he could just knock down those open 3's, as he did in July, he'd be a major asset. Meanwhile, Yabusele has been getting some run lately. Brad is searching for someone, anyone, who can juice up that second unit.