National Basketball Association

Celtics-Heat Eastern Conference finals: 4 things to watch

Published May. 17, 2023 1:25 p.m. ET

This year’s Eastern Conference finals matchup sounds like a paradox. It’s both a repeat of last year’s, and a complete surprise.

The Heat were not supposed to be here. It was just about one month ago that they were trailing the Chicago Bulls in the second round of the play-in tournament, a loss that would have ended their season before the playoffs even began.

You know what’s happened since.

First, they trounced the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Then they bullied the New York Knicks. They’ve gone 8-2 in the playoffs after posting a mediocre 44-38 record during the regular season.

The Celtics’ year has almost been a bizarro version of the Heat’s. They had a fantastic regular season — 57-25, second-best record in the NBA — then struggled in the first round against the inferior Atlanta Hawks, then were five minutes away from being ousted in the second round by an undermanned Philadelphia 76ers squad.

And yet, after all that, we’re right back where we’ve basically been for the past half decade. This will be the third conference finals matchup between these two teams over the past five seasons. Many of the players are the same. In the first of those battles, in the bubble in 2020, the Heat were victorious in six games. Last season, the Celtics held on in seven.

How do the two teams match up this season? The Celtics — more stars, more talent, more depth, more versatility — are the clear favorites. But if there’s anything we’ve learned since Jimmy Butler joined Erik Spoelstra in Miami, don't count out the Heat. With that in mind, here are the trends and matchups that will determine the winner.

Erik Spoelstra vs. Joe Mazzulla

This is going to sound more offensive than it’s meant to, but this might be the greatest coaching advantage a team has ever boasted in the conference finals. It’s not that Joe Mazzulla is a bad coach. It’s that he’s a very young (34) and very inexperienced (first season in the lead chair).

We’ve seen Mazzulla’s inexperience manifest itself in a number of ways over the playoffs. From some strange lineup choices — such as limiting Robert Williams III’s minutes early in the Sixers’ series, a decision that his own players said they were happy he reversed — to admonishing reporters after a news conference for not asking him about successful adjustments he made between games.

Spoelstra, on the other hand, is probably the best coach in the NBA. He’s proved himself to be both creative game-to-game and adept on the fly. On defense, the Heat mix up all sorts of man and zone coverages. On offense, they’re going to take the right shots. And none of this is new to Spoelstra. He’s coached 172 playoff games. Mazzulla has coached 13.

How hurt is Jimmy Butler?

No matter what the man himself says, Playoff Jimmy is real. These are his postseason numbers since joining Miami in 2019: 25 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.9 steals per game, while shooting 49%. He’s led the Heat to three conference finals and one NBA Finals. And we all saw what he did in the first round to the Bucks. Not only did he beat them. He cost Mike Budenholzer his job and left Giannis contemplating the meaning of failure.

But he also rolled his ankle in Game 1 against the Knicks. He missed Game 2 and can still be seen limping around anytime he enters the arena. Which is why it’s likely not a coincidence that his production dropped in the second round. His totals were still spectacular — 24.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.2 assists per game — but his field-goal percentage plummeted to 43.2%. Against the Knicks, that didn’t matter. But against the stacked Celtics, who have four defenders to throw at him (Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Grant Williams) the Heat are going to need Playoff Jimmy at full throttle.

Will Jayson Tatum’s heater continue?

After the third quarter of Game 6 against the Sixers, it looked like Tatum was headed for an offseason of reckoning. He’d been dreadful. He had just three points on 1-for-13 shooting — never mind that he was tossing the ball all over the place and looked lost. This, after he racked up just seven points in Game 2.

Then the fourth quarter arrived and Tatum went off. On the road, he outscored the Sixers 16-13 in the game’s final 12 minutes, saving the Celtics’ season. That hot shooting carried over into Game 7, with Tatum stomping the Sixers with 51 points on a ridiculous 17-for-28 shooting. Oh, and he didn’t turn the ball over once.

No one expects Tatum to drop 50 every game this series. But, with all the surrounding talent, if he continues to play the way he has over the past five quarters, the Heat have no shot.

The Celtics’ double-big lineup vs. the Heat’s on-and-off 3-point shooting

Last season, the Celtics rode the starting lineup of Tatum, Brown, Smart, Al Horford and Robert Williams III to the Finals. This season, Mazzulla went away from that alignment so that he could get another wing on the court and spread the floor. The tactic worked during the regular season, but it also left Boston’s defense exposed during the playoffs.

So before Game 6, Mazzulla replaced Derrick White with Williams. The old/new quartet played 32 minutes together in Games 6 and 7. Williams, one of the league’s premier rim protects, left P.J. Tucker alone and roamed along the baseline as free-safety. In that stretch, the Celtics torched the Sixers on both ends of the floor and outscored them by a ridiculous 29.8 points per 100 possessions.

Mazzulla has already announced that he’s going to keep that lineup for Game 1. The way to beat it and to punish Williams’ over helping is to take — and make — lots and lots of 3s.

The Heat have been doing exactly that in the playoffs. They drilled 45% of their deep looks against the Bucks, and 38.2% against the Knicks. During the regular season, however, they connected on just 34.8% of their 3s, one of the worst marks in the league.

So, which is real? You always bet on the larger sample, but Duncan Robinson rediscovering his stroke (42.6% on 5.5 attempts per game in the playoffs) means there’s a chance the Heat’s hot shooting continues.

Prediction

It’s tough to pick against Playoff Jimmy and Spo. But this Celtics group has such a talent advantage. Even if Miami drills its jumpers, Boston can go back to its wing-heavy lineup and just switch across the perimeter.

For the Heat to win, they’re going to need a monster performance from Butler and tons of hot outside shooting. Both are possible, but not likely. Because of that, the pick here is Celtics in five.

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.

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