Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Crowder, Heat vow to size up competition
Forward failed to take advantage of mismatch vs. Celtics in Game 3
Jae Crowder wasn’t able to size up his defender in Saturday night’s loss to the Boston Celtics. The veteran Miami Heat forward said that will change — has to change — in Wednesday’s Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Even if he has to look down upon the competition.
As part of the ongoing chess match of the best-of-seven series that has the Heat up 2-1, the latest round of Celtics adjustments had 6-foot Kemba Walker as the primary defender against Crowder on Saturday night. At 6-6, nonetheless all 10 of Crowder’s Game 3 shots were 3-point attempts.
“Obviously, I don’t want to give everything away,” Crowder said after Monday’s practice at Disney World. “But, obviously, we’ve got to make adjustments, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been practicing, watching film. We’ll continue to do so. But obviously it’ll be a different game plan, different approach moving forward.”
By making the switch, it allowed the Celtics to instead utilize the defensive prowess of Marcus Smart against Goran Dragic, with Dragic limited to a playoff-low 11 points Saturday night.
Dragic had thrived the previous two games against Walker. So now does that become Crowder’s mandate?
“It’s the playoffs. It’s about making adjustments and moving pieces around and trying to adjust,” Crowder said. “So without giving too much away, this is a chess match. It’s two good teams going head to head, two good coaches coaching at their best.
“So we’ll make adjustments, we’ll be ready for Game 4. Obviously, we did watch film we will continue to watch film. The game is about adjustments, and we will definitely do our part about adjustments. But that’s all I can give right now.”
Coach Erik Spoelstra was equally vague, other than acknowledging that change is coming.
“You just have to do things with more intention, like we talked about,” Spoelstra said. “This is high-level competition. There will be intense moments. There will be moments where you really have to combine the competitive intensity along with thought. And that’s what you want out of this.
“This is not supposed to be easy. And you’re supposed to get tested, your game, and see if you can take it to a different level.”
With Spoelstra now hopeful of getting Dragic back to the level he was at before Game 3.
“I have to do my job to get him comfortable, to get him places where he can be his best version,” Spoelstra said. “Goran is as decorated, as experienced as any player in this league, in terms of big games, playoff games, international playoff games. He knows that that not every game is going to go your way. But it’s competition and you work to have a better one the next time.”
Forward Andre Iguodala, who found the Celtics attempting to hide defensively challenged center Enes Kanter on him in the first half of Game 3, said Monday it is a matter of proactively dissuading such an approach.
“Just do a better job myself or anyone else,” Iguodala said, “when they’re trying to throw some different look at you, just understanding to get into those triggers quickly, a little faster, in terms of what you’re trying to do offensively, making the counters to the counters, and making sure we’re not surprised by whatever’s happening and knowing what puts us in a good position offensively and the triggers we need to do to make sure we’re ready for any type of little nuances they throw our way.”
With the series in the midst of a three-day break, it allows additional time to marinate on strategy.
“Either way, you have to deal with whatever present itself in terms of the schedule,” Spoelstra said. “So we’re trying to take advantage of this.”
Which also includes Heat defensive twists of their own.
“That goes without saying,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat allowing the Celtics to shoot .482 from the field in Game 3. “You could see that formula. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out that that ain’t going to work.”