The Boston Celtics will take on the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals after Indy surprised the Knicks and won Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon. Game 1 of the series will be Tuesday night at 8 p.m.
The Celtics and Pacers played each other five times this season because of the in-season tournament, with Boston winning three of those. One of the losses was part of a third-quarter collapse after Tyrese Haliburton left the game with a hamstring strain. The other loss came earlier in a Haliburton-fueled fourth-quarter runaway to eliminate Boston from the in-season tournament.
Here are some quick thoughts on the upcoming series ahead of my full preview on Tuesday morning.
- The Haliburton we saw bounce Boston from the tournament hasn’t really shown himself since that hamstring injury. He has been a shell of himself.
Prior to the injury, Haliburton averaged 23.6 points per game on 49.7% shooting (40.3% from 3) and 12.5 assists. After the injury, he dropped to 16.6 points on 45.5% shooting (32.3% from 3) and 9.4 assists in the regular season. In the playoffs, he’s at 18.8 points (49.2%/37.5%) and 8.1 assists.
The analysis of this series might simply boil down to “which Haliburton are we getting?” If the pre-injury Haliburton shows up, this will be a tough six or seven-game series. If he remains where he is now or if he regresses at all, the Celtics can make quick work of them and get another week off before the Finals.
- Kristaps Porzingis’ return would be welcome against Myles Turner. He was at the Auerbach Center riding a stationary bike pretty hard on Sunday afternoon. That's a good sign. When Joe Mazzulla was asked if he’s optimistic about a Porzingis return in this series, he said “I feel like I’m an optimistic person in general.”
He also said “he's working hard every single day to make as fast as a recovery as he can. So he's there for everything and it can't go underestimated how hard he works, trying to come back in a timely fashion.”
That's better than the “I have no idea” he usually gives us when it comes to Porzingis. I’ve been saying since early in his recovery that a return during the ECF feels the most likely. He won’t play in the first couple of games, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him.
- The Pacers and Celtics are 1-2 in playoff offensive rating (121.7 and 118.9 respectively), but Boston is third defensively while the Pacers are 13th and there's a 12 point per 100 possession gap between them. So all Boston has to do is make things uncomfortable for the Pacers to hold them to a reasonable number. The Celtics should be able to score a bunch of points.
- Home court advantage has to matter in this round. Mazzulla was asked about that at practice. He shot back with “it's funny, Does anybody know the records of all the teams in the playoffs this year at home? That's interesting because we're third at 4-2. One team is 6-0, the Knicks are 5-1 and everyone else is 4-2.”
Well, that one team that's 6-0 is Indiana. And while I don’t think that trend will continue against the Celtics, who are 4-0 on the road so far, it would still be nice to not split those first two games at home again. The Pacers are 2-5 on the road, but they needed to shoot 70% against the Knicks to win that Game 7. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Celtics won’t allow a 70% shooting night.
This is where I’ll remind you that jinxes aren’t real.
Protect home court against a bad road team and then work your road magic to take care of this series quickly.
“I think we've done a relatively decent job of protecting home court,” Mazzulla said. “At the end of the day, you gotta win. it doesn't matter where we play, you gotta win and you gotta do all the things that go into winning. We just talked about that, regardless of where the game is, the most important thing are the details that go into winning and sticking to those.”
- Aaron Nesmith in a playoff revenge situation is going to be pure chaos. This might turn into a tables, ladders, and chairs match instead of an NBA playoff series.
- Where are all those Knicks fans who were chanting “we want Boston” last week?
