Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics' loss to the Miami Heat in their preseason finale with BSJ insight and analysis.
HEADLINES
Boston held up well against a tough Heat squad: The final score is in no way indicative of how this game went. This was a tight one throughout, which was good to see considering the Heat played their normal rotation. Even though Jayson Tatum was hounded throughout the game, enough guys stepped up that it was an encouraging performance. It was by no means perfect. In fact, it was flat out bad at some points, but those points were generally followed up by nice recoveries to keep it close.
Romeo Langford makes a statement: He finished with 7-9 shooting, 4-6 from deep, and all of those 3-pointers from the corner. I cannot overstate how important Langford being a knockdown 3-point shooter from the corner would be for this team.
So did Dennis Schröder: His first half was pretty great. Much more on Schröder’s night coming up.
TURNING POINT
It was 93-89 Miami with 9:38 to go, but the end of Miami’s bench put together an 11-2 run to take control. Miami outscored the end of Boston’s bench 28-11 in that final 9:38.
THREE UP
Romeo Langford: He made some nice defensive plays on top of his shooting. Just an overall incredibly encouraging night for Langford. So much so, that I’ll save the rest of what I want to say for a separate piece on him later.
Dennis Schröder: He was getting past his defenders with ease, especially in the first half, and then hitting his teammates with some brilliant passes. He also made some amazing defensive plays, including a ridiculous blocked shot and a great hustle steal. He scored 11 of his 13 points in the first quarter.
Aaron Nesmith: Also more of a first half performance -- Nesmith did take a little step back in the second half, but his performance from the Orlando game carried over to start this one.
TWO DOWN
Juancho Hernangomez: He is not doing much to make a name for himself so far. His preseason has been bad. It’s early and he’s new, so there’s no final judgement to be made about him just yet, but it’d be nice to see something good from him.
Grant Williams: He really wasn’t bad in this game. He and Bam Adebayo actually went back and forth some and Grant held his own.
He’s in the “down” for drawing an offensive foul on an illegal screen and then complaining about it so much that Adebayo got the inbound pass in the backcourt and dribbled into a transition dunk. That was a big no-no for the coach.
“The main thing, I’m telling him to get back and stop worrying about the referee - your guy is bringing it right behind you,” Ime Udoka said after the play. Williams was benched, in part, because of that play. “Just a learning moment. You can’t get caught up in that. You have to play through it just like they did. They played with pace. When we cried about calls, they were running out and got too many easy looks. So something like I said we talked about early in camp. It’s something I’m going to keep hammering away on until we get where we want to be.”
SO/SO
Jayson Tatum: He led the Celtics with 23 points, 11 coming in the third quarter on 5-of-8 shooting. However, he shot just 8-of-19 from the floor and committed a game-high-tying six turnovers as he was hounded almost all night by the Heat. Basically, when they single-covered him, he torched them. When they threw two and three guys at him, he turned it over or missed shots.
Jabari Parker: I just want to mention his two great cuts to the basket that resulted in dunks. He wasn’t bad in the game. In fact, he didn’t do a whole lot. But the cuts were good and he had a couple of decent defensive plays.
TOP PLAY
THROW IT DOWN @Grant2Will ‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/E1AF6fGVUG
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 15, 2021
ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
Marcus Smart needs to be careful about Dennis Schröder:
I don't want to overreact to a couple of decent preseason performances from Schröder, but at the same time, I can see the beginning of something here.
You know when a meteorologist on the Weather Channel points to a bunch of clouds off the coast of west Africa and says “we’re watching this tropical disturbance to see if it can get organized and develop into something?”
That’s kind of where I am here. Smart is the starting point guard and he should be. He knows these guys and, despite everything, I still believe he’s earned that role and should keep it going into the season.
However, something feels off about Smart so far and I’m not sure what it is. At the same time, Schröder is showing he can penetrate and dish very effectively.
I also still think Schröder is better off the bench -- and I mean that for him personally as well as for the team. It might be best to keep it all the same regardless, but there’s also part of me that is watching this disturbance to see if it materializes. Chances are slim that it does, especially because Schröder's stay in Boston is so temporary, but the clouds are there. What will become of them?