Celtics, Heat prepping for Game 4
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Getting angry worked wonders for the Boston Celtics.
Their first win in these Eastern Conference finals just happened to come two nights after Marcus Smart sparked a loud and emotional series of shouting matches inside the Celtics’ locker room, all of that starting only a few seconds after the Miami Heat won to take a 2-0 lead in the series.
That lead is down to 2-1 now, the Celtics playing brilliantly in Game 3 and leading wire-to-wire to take a bunch of newfound momentum into Game 4 of the series on Wednesday.
“I’ve always been saying that before you see the rainbow, it has to storm,” Smart said Monday, speaking about the post-Game 2 dustup for the first time publicly. “For us, that was a storm that we had to go through. We found our happy place.”
It’s now Miami’s turn to find a happy place — though an unhappy place would seem more appropriate. The Heat never led in Game 3, got themselves into a double-digit hole for the third consecutive game in this series and fourth straight overall, and because of a scheduling quirk now get to sit around and stew for three full off days before getting a chance to atone for what went wrong Saturday.
“Look, there’s two teams competing against each other,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “So as much as you want to say, ‘Hey, it’s just about us and we just have to do X, Y and Z,’ the Boston Celtics have something to say about that. Likewise, when they’re doing whatever they’re trying to do, we have something to say about that.”
The Celtics’ anger was no secret and was displayed at least somewhat publicly; reporters near their locker room heard the commotion after Game 2, with Smart being the one who lit the fuse.
“He’s the guy that keeps us going and keeps us inspired, keeps us being competitive,” Boston’s Grant Williams said. “... You just have to follow his lead and trust that we have a lot of guys on this team that can do a lot of great things. He’s just going to compete his butt off and we follow that standard.”