Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dragic goes on the offensive
Veteran’s latest playoff scoring heroics was 29-point effort vs. Celts
Goran Dragic essentially exited stage left after Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, cast aside to the secondary postgame interview area at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.
It was an atypical juxtaposition considering he was the Miami Heat’s leading scorer in a thrilling 117-114 overtime victory over the Boston Celtics. No matter, not after scoring a team-high nine of his 29 points in a dramatic fourth-quarter surge that fueled the victory.
So he stepped aside for Jimmy Butler to score the game’s daggers and for Bam Adebayo to finish it off on the defensive end with his overtime block for the ages.
And then Dragic ceded the prime postgame interview space to those two.
“We just read the game, go with the flow,” he said as the Heat turned their attention to Game 2 on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the bestof-seven series being played in the NBA’s quarantine setting amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
If not for Dragic’s early scoring, including 11 of his 16 first-half
points in the second period, there might not have been late-game dramatics to discuss for Erik Spoelstra’s team.
“Spo wants me to be aggressive, to be involved and try to make plays,” Dragic said. “I just saw a couple of openings and I took advantage of that. From there on, my confidence just grew.” As did the Heat’s.
“It was really important because we couldn’t get anything going, and that’s a big-time credit to their defense,” Spoelstra said. “They got us out of our normal rhythm. It wasn’t about us; that’s just what they do.
“And Goran was able to shake free a few times and put some points on the board. That just gave us a little bit more confidence in the second quarter.”
It is why, in the wake of the highlight moments by others, there again was admiration for Dragic as the team’s stabilizing presence.
“Goran is so smart, and he’s telling everybody where to be out there on the floor,” Butler said. “He was huge in putting the ball in the basket.”
Among the keys going into the series was how the matchup would shake out at point guard against the Celtics’ Kemba Walker.
History entered on Walker’s side as he had outscored Dragic in the first six games of the Heat’s seven-game opening-round series win against the Charlotte Hornets in 2016. At times, the discrepancy in that series was sobering, including games when Walker outscored Dragic 34-12 and 37-14.
But in the decisive game in that series, in what would be Walker’s final postseason appearance until this season, it was Dragic with the 25-9 scoring advantage as the Heat advanced.
Then Tuesday, it was Dragic not only outscoring Walker 29-19, but shooting 11 of 19 compared to Walker’s 6 of 19.
“Not much I can say, but I have to be better,” Walker said. “I have to do better for this team on both ends of the floor. I have to make better decisions. I just have to make shots overall.”
The two find themselves at contrasting points in their careers. Dragic, at 34, is in the final season of his Heat contract. Walker, at 30, is at the start of a fouryear, $141 million deal with the Celtics.
And yet it is Dragic who has been on the rise this postseason. Tuesday’s 29-point showing was Dragic’s seventh game with 20 or more in his 10 playoff appearances at Disney.
Walker, by contrast, is in the midst of a protracted slump, with his 1 of 9 on 3-pointers Tuesday following his 1 of 7 in the Celtics’ Game 7 escape against the Toronto Raptors the previous round, with three 1-of-6 outings on 3-pointers preceding that game.
“I’m just playing terrible, to be honest,” Walker said.
Dragic said Walker’s Tuesday struggles were about more than a single defender.
“You need to mix a little bit defensively on him, and I think we did that,” Dragic said. “We started switching and then we started blitzing. We just tried to make it tough on him.”
While Dragic had his teammates’ backs early with his scoring, they had his on the defensive end.
“We just wanted to give him a lot of different looks,” forward Jae Crowder said of the approach against Walker. “We didn’t want him to be comfortable.
“We just tried to make it as tough as possible, knowing he’s a heck of an offensive player in our league. We just wanted to wear on him as the game went on, and I think that’s what we did.”