MIAMI — As the Celtics and Heat met up in the first round for the third straight playoffs, Bam Adebayo put it perfectly in the lead-up to the series. It was going to be a dogfight, the big man said, where the two teams will battle it out every single game.
But as the Celtics came away with a blowout win over the Heat in Game 3, it was clear which team was the aggressor all night. The C’s took a double-digit lead early in the second quarter then never looked back in a dominant 104-84 win that was never close to take a 2-1 series lead. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was blunt in his assessment of the loss postgame.
“They were the more physical team,” Spoelstra told reporters. “They bodied us, bullied us on screens. Got through stuff. Distorted screens. Everything. Flattened us out. They were the more physical team. The team with more physicality and force on both ends of the court.”
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Initially, it was a fight in the mud as neither team made shots. The C’s owned the early lead, but they weren’t able to capitalize much on the Heat scoring only 12 points in the first quarter. But the shots finally started falling for the C’s to open the second as they built up a commanding lead.
The process was also different compared to Game 2, when the Heat rained down 3-pointers on the Celtics. While the Heat got some early open looks, they weren’t able to knock them down. It’s why Spoelstra said he actually liked the offensive process early on.
But once the Heat couldn’t knock down shots, it affected their play on the other end of the court. Then once the C’s upped their physicality Saturday, the game was all but over. The Celtics will look to carry over that intensity into Game 4, which is set for 7 p.m. Monday at the Kaseya Center. But as has been the case with this team all the time, the Heat are unlikely to go down without at least a few swings.
“They stayed at home a little bit more on the shooters,” Spoelstra said. “It also depends, if we execute with a little more intention. … Once they started bullying us and bodying us and gettin g us out of any other trigger or action, it was easy to flatten us out at that point. Nobody was open and we were left with end-of-possession on going one-on-one or dribbling through all of their size.”
