A lot of sports analysis is about feel vs facts. It definitely feels like these NBA playoffs have been unique, but it turns out they haven't been. There have not been any game-changing shots in the last minute or buzzer-beaters that we remember.
That doesn't mean that the Celtics-Heat series hasn't been weird, it just hasn't been until Game 5. There were four lead changes in the whole series until the Celtics won 93-80 in Game 5. The team jumped out to a lead in the first quarter.
Fans got a close game for three quarters.
Miami and Boston were close through 36 minutes, but only because they couldn't string together enough buckets to open up a lead. There isn't going to be open lengths between you and you when you are stuck in the mud.
Both teams are not together. Every time he moves his arm, he has a shoulder that sounds like popcorn. Jimmy Butler's knee is barking, as loud as everyone he feeds news to to make sure they bark about how bad his knee is to excuse his complete no-show. Marcus Smart and Robert Williiams III have already missed games and are hobbled because Tyler Herro didn't play. The Celtics are reeling from having to play seven games in seven nights, and the Heat are exhausted from playing so many games.
Because they got to play an under.500 Hawks team in the first round, they were able to pose all they wanted while beating a team that wasn't even in the playoffs. Then they got a second-round date with a completely crocked Joel Embiid, when he was even healthy enough to play, and a bloated James Harden and a team that is trying to figure out what it is they are supposed to do. What about the Heat? They got Kyle back.
The Celtics decided to make the Heat beat them from 3 in order to make them beat them from deep, as their 7-for-45 performance from deep in Game 5 proves. The C's have dropped off every screen in the past two games and dared the Heat to shoot over it. It made for a hard watch. Everyone seemed too tired to drive to the rim, even when they did. You wondered if they hadn't set them up wrong when the shots clank off the front of the rim.
This is the result of a crammed schedule. Watching Game 5 was like watching a bunch of rhinos in the sun at the zoo, a lot of lying around with the occasional tussle out of memory, play-acted at what it should be like in the wild but not having near the oomph to really put their back into it.
The first three quarters were awful, but the C's woke up at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th to put this one on ice. The Boston bench got the vapors because of the violence from Jaylen Brown.
The Fels Motherfuck will only add to the lore he has been selling to anyone willing to listen, and this seems a perfect night for him. He has an out, as he has knee inflammation. Even though several Celtics are banged up and not going 4-for-18, he will get the credit for being out there. If the Heat had pulled it out, he would have shown how his teammates got turned inside out. You can be sure that every national NBA writer will be getting a text three minutes after the final horn to alert them to the arrival of Butler at the Heat practice facility. It's never his fault.
There is a word on Tyler Herro.
The NBA is coming off their high horse from a long time ago, and letting players do what they do. But sunglasses should not be worn indoors. Anyone who has worn sunglasses indoors without an eye ailment has never been less thanraging or uncontrollable on the Dickhead Meter. Herro's clothes looked like they were made from cocaine. They may have been.
When the Heat can work on their culture in the privacy of their own homes, we will all be better off.
Nathan MacKinnon's goal was wasted by the Avs because they insist on playing Darcy Kuemper in net with a straight face.
Nick Leddy is no longer with us. There shouldn't be any coming back from that. The Blues did it thanks to a goal in the last minute and a weak OT winner from Tyler Bozak. The NHL seems to be the same as the NBA in not giving us signature moments this spring.
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