Celtics Beat The Heat For The Third Time In April

Hey, did you ever wonder how the Celtics (minus Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen & Rajon Rondo) would do against the Heat (without LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh)? Me neither but that dumpster fire happened tonight at TD Garden with Boston (38-27, 23-9 home) prevailing 78-66 over Miami (46-19, 18-14 away).

All you need to know about this mostly meaningless game, the second to last one of the regular season, was that Sasha Pavlovic was the game's leading scorer with 16 points. Marquis Daniels (13 points) was the other Celtic to score in double figures. Paul Pierce, Brandon Bass and Avery Bradley all had eight points while Keyon Dooling and E'Twaun Moore scored seven apiece.

For the Heat, former blob Dexter Pittman had 12 points and James Jones put up 11 off the bench. Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers both scored eight points as well.

I could quibble with why Pierce played tonight (only 18 minutes) but that would make my head hurt too much. My only rationale is that he'll sit out the regular season finale on Thursday against Milwaukee while maybe KG and Rondo will get some run.

The only reason that the Bucks game deserves any mention is that the Celts are only one game behind Atlanta going into their final contests. The Hawks (39-36) host the Mavericks on Thursday night. If Boston wins and Atlanta loses, the C's will have home-court since they own the tiebreaker. Otherwise, they'll have to start their first round series in the ATL.

Tonight and Thursday will serve as a reminder why nobody pays attention to NBA preseason games, they're brutal. Bring on the playoffs!

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Heat decide to show up, Celtics basically don't in Gm. 1 of Eastern Conference semifinals

I was at the Red Sox-Mariners game yesterday afternoon so I wasn't able to watch Game 1 of the Eastern Conference between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat live. Still, this being 2011 I couldn't help myself (even though I was recording it on DVR) and had to check the score on Twitter and my phone plus look at the TVs in the bars on Landsdowne Street as we walked down the street.

I listened to the end of the game on the radio as I drove home, took some time to decompress then finally sat down and watched it. One word comes to mind: yuck.

The Heat rolled to a 99-90 win at AmericanAirlines Arena in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Dwyane Wade had a game-high 38 points but the key in the win was James Jones. The sharpshooter off the bench (the 2011 3-point champion at the All-Star Game) had 25 points. LeBron James had 22 points while Chris Bosh (7 points, 12 rebounds) continued to be one of the biggest frauds in the NBA.

Ray Allen led the Celts with 25 points, Paul Pierce had 19 points and Delonte West had 10 points. Rajon Rondo (8 points, 7 assists, 7 rebounds)-who was saddled with three fouls early-and Kevin Garnett (6 points, 8 rebounds) were both basically non-factors. Jermaine O'Neal and Jeff Green each added nine points.

An NBA playoff game wouldn't be complete without WWE style posing and theatrics. Yesterday, that meant Pierce would get booted out of the game in the fourth quarter on a bogus technical. He picked up the first one after jawing with Jones after a foul. A minute later, Wade ran into him on a hard screen and more yelling commenced. Pierce must have said all of George Carlin's seven words as he got tossed.

The first technical (which went to both players) was an easy one. I agree that the second one was completely ridiculous but Pierce has to know better than to go crazy like that for no reason. Boston wasn't going to make a full comeback anyway but seeing their captain get ejected meant it was really over.

The only bright side for the Celtics is that the Heat could never fully put them away when they had countless opportunities to do so. Boston had every reason to get blown out but it just didn't materialize. It was well chronicled that during the regular season, Miami was terrible in the fourth quarter of close games so they should have that hanging over their heads until they change that perception in the playoffs.

Miami led 20-14 after the first quarter and 51-36 at halftime. The Celtics outscored the Heat 26-25 in the third quarter and 28-23 in the fourth quarter.

For the game, Miami shot 47.1% to 42.7% for Boston. The Celtics hit three more 3-pointers (12-9) but the Heat made 12 more free throws (26-14). Surprisingly, Miami made five more blocks (8-3).

Game 2 is tomorrow night and the Celtics have never trailed by two games in playoffs during the Big Three era. Therefore, Game 2 is a telling barometer for what to expect in this series.