Star watching
Celtics coach Stevens letting his top talent carry the load against Heat
The Celtics grabbed a 117-106 win over the Heat in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night, pulling within 2-1 in the series and reigniting their NBA Finals hopes.
Along the way, Celtics coach Brad Stevens appears to be changing his approach.
Stevens generally values keeping his best players fresh over keeping them on the floor for supremely long stretches, but during this series he is turning his stars into marathon men while Miami sticks with more traditional rotation patterns.
Even though the Heat have a 2-1 series lead, this approach has helped the Celtics a bit. Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart are all averaging more than 39 minutes per game. The Heat have no players at that mark. Miami has a deeper bench, but it is being outscored by 29.8 points per 100 possessions when Bam Adebayo sits.
Miami bench players Kelly Olynyk, Kendrick Nunn and Derrick Jones Jr. all have net ratings of minus-20 or worse. Look for Heat coach Erik Spoelstra to give his starters a bit more run in Game 4.
Hayward’s change of plans: Celtics forward Gordon Hayward initially planned to leave the Orlando bubble to be with his wife for the birth of the couple’s fourth child, but now he is going to stay with the Celtics instead. He said it was partly because he was able to spend a few weeks with family when he left the bubble to rehabilitate his ankle injury, and partly because there was a chance that even if he flew from Orlando to Indiana he would miss the birth anyway.
This is certainly anunusual predicament, but hopefully the Haywards made this choice without feeling like they owed it to anyone for Haywardtokeepplaying basketball. Thegoodnewsis that at the very latest, the season will be over in about three weeks.
It would be ironic if Robyn Hayward gives birth during, say, the NBA Finals against the Lakers, and Hayward ends up playing in the games because of an ankle injury that sent him home weeks earlier.
Celtics juggling centers: The Celtics’ backup center rotation during the playoffs has been fascinating.
Robert Williams, Enes Kanter and Grant Williams have all had good moments, and their appearances have been largely matchup-dependent, but the three have almost nothing in common on the court. Of the three, though, Grant Williams seems to have emerged as the most consistently trustworthy in big spots, which is saying something for a 21-year-old rookie who is considerably undersized at the position.
As for Kanter, he takes some heat when teams look to exploit him in pick-and-roll actions, but the advanced metrics love him during these playoffs. In his nine games, Boston has outscored opponents by 23.1 points per 100 possessions with Kanter on the floor. Tatum has the next closest net rating, nearly 15 points behind at 8.6. Most surprisingly, Kanter’s 96.6 defensive rating is tops among Boston’s regular rotation players. These stats are skewed a bit by the fact that Kanter’s heaviest workload came in the first-round sweep over the 76ers, but he has an 88.9 defensive rating against Miami, too.