BOSTON — There was a familiar atmosphere in the visitor's locker room at TD Garden Wednesday night. The Miami Heat celebrated their road win over the Boston Celtics as loudly as they did after Game 7 of last season's Eastern Conference Finals. The players cheered. Pacificos was played. Music blared.
This may have only been Game 2 of the first round of an NBA playoff series, but the Heat had extra fuel.
After Miami's 111-101 series-tying upset, players could be heard shouting “We code red” from the locker room. “We’re coding for Reading.”
He was referring to comments made by former Celtics forward turned announcer Brian Scalabrine shortly after Boston's big Game 1 win. Scalabrine called Caleb Martin's undercut of Celtics star Jayson Tatum “shady” and said Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra used a late timeout to order a so-called “code red.” It was suggested that this may be the case.
Both teams spent the holiday making light of the fake controversy, but only the Heat took it seriously.
Why not? They were behind by double digits for two games in a row. This was supposed to be the league's most lopsided series, with Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier sitting out competing for the No. 8 seed. The talent gap with the 64-win Celtics seemed insurmountable. Oh, how things have turned.
Sometimes all you need is a simple math lesson. In Game 1, Boston made 22 3-pointers to Miami's 12. Anyone who has listened to the Heat game over and over again points out in Sunday's postgame interviews that there could be an adjustment Wednesday, given the 30-point lead. They did just that, setting a franchise playoff record with 23 triples on 43 attempts (53.5%) and defeating the Celtics by 33 points at the arc in their own game.
“Honestly, I thought it would have been the same in the first game,” said Tyler Herro, who led Miami with 24 points (6-of-11 shooting). “The players didn't buy it, myself included. The conversation within the team was to be aggressive and try to get open shots. If they give it to us, don't hesitate. Please let it go.”
“That's part of their game plan, too. They're going to keep certain guys open,” added Martin, who scored 21 points and made 5 of 6 3-pointers. “We play to our game plan and we don't hesitate to shoot. I think all of our players are very capable shooters. And the more hesitant we are, the better we shoot the ball.”
The game plan was clear, but the Heat downplayed the idea that this was a simple math equation, some kind of anomaly, and that they couldn't recreate the magic, meaning they couldn't beat the Celtics without doing so. This is guts, they said. As Home Court reminds us, the Heat culture, “the hardest-working, best-conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, meanest, meanest team in the NBA,” wins again. .
Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. said, “I think the focus was just on scoring more points, and they scored less.'' “That's what it was. We just wanted more of it. … At the end of the day, it was about toughness and will.” Winning. “
And why they are the second No. 8 seed in history to reach the NBA Finals, three years after winning as a No. 5 seed last season, defeating another hugely popular Celtics team. Why don't you trust it? This wasn't just a 3. they would say so. It's basketball. It's about finding a way to win.
“We've been under a lot of doubt during the playoff games,” Bam Adebayo said. He did his damage inside the arc, making nine of Miami's 14 two-point field goals. “There are people who say we couldn't have done a lot of what we could have done. So for me and my team, it's, why lose faith now? We're against the wall, everyone's already A lot of people seem to think we're going to take what they say and let it seep into our locker room, but I Our players believe we can step between those lines. We're not about basketball, we're about this guy and that guy. Come join us in that cage fight and let's hoop.”
Of course, there's more to this competition than just the Code Red controversy. “I don't care about him. I care about the team and what we're trying to accomplish,” Celtics center Kristaps Porzisis said of Adebayo after Game 1. . Adebayo was asked about these comments, but there was no substantive context.
“I don't do social media, so I don't hear anything like that,” Adebayo said. Adebayo, with a lot of hands circling him, helped limit Porzigis to just six points on 1-of-9 shooting. “That's the way it is. He can say what he wants. We just get in between those lines and take care of business.”
Both teams understood the math. What the Celtics can't assess is how much confidence the Heat will derive from this. I could also hear it from the hallway of TD Garden. Even if you don't believe, they believe.
