Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Celtics say their best is yet to come
The challenge going forward for the Heat was made clear Monday by Celtics coach Brad Stevens: Miami is about to see more of Boston’s best.
With Gordon Hayward back in the mix, the Celtics are making no pretense about anything other than getting their top five players on the court as much as possible the balance of these Eastern Conference finals as often as feasible.
“Well, the hard part about that is we never had all five or very rarely had all five available during the regular season before the hiatus,” Stevens said of the quintet of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart and Hayward. “It was only like 12 or 13 games. And then when we got here, Kemba wasn’t practicing for the first few weeks, so we never really got into that stuff much.”
Then came Hayward’s return in Saturday’s Game 3 from a month off due to a severely sprained ankle, with the goal now to tie the series in Wednesday’s 8:30 p.m. Game 5 in the best-of-seven series at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex.
“The idea was that we have to get those guys on the court as much as possible,” Stevens said of Game 3, “and I thought their defense together was great and obviously led to some run-outs there late in the first half that were huge baskets for us heading into halftime of that game. But we have to get more crisp with that group.
“But certainly in the playoffs, the more you can play your best players, the better, and those are our five best.”
Smart said having the group back together has been revitalizing.
“The five lineup with me, Gordon, Jayson, Jaylen, and Kemba, it’s just different,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of firepower in that group. We’ve got a lot of versatility. We’ve got a lot of length between me, Gordon, Jayson, and Jaylen where we can switch any ball screen with us, and even sometimes with Kemba.
“But on the offensive end, our firepower is remarkable in the fact that you lock in on one or two guys, you’ve still got those other three guys, the guys that can hurt you.”
Isolation chamber
The Heat and Celtics not only are in the midst of a three-day break, but it comes with only four teams remaining in the Disney quarantine bubble, with the Western Conference finalist Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets also on campus.
“I was saying today that when we first got here, this place was bustling,” Stevens said, with 22 teams initially participating in the league’s July restart following the four-month shutdown due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, including eight teams in the hotel the teams currently are utilizing. “There were eight teams that were here, there were tons of people. The other 14 teams were shuttling in and out and practicing in this building.
“And now, in a lot of ways, this hallway feels empty. Even though Miami and Denver and L.A., we’re all still here, it feels like a lot less people. So the fourday break feels a little eerie, to be honest.”
Still feisty
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said even amid the Disney isolation, forward Jimmy Butler grew feisty well before having to now deal with the Heat’s first lopsided playoff loss.
“He’s going to be intense Jimmy every time he steps in between the lines,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve had several practices that no one saw here in the bubble. He was, again, that guy, just a skirmish and pushing, yelling, all the stuff that we love.”
Said teammate Jae Crowder, “We just need him to be on. We need him to be as locked in as possible, and we need the offense to flow through him and flow through Goran [Dragic] as much as possible.”