The day before his short-handed Heat sought to even the score with the heavily favored Celtics, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra made an intriguing comment about his team’s identity.
After being deluged by Boston’s 3-point shooting in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference first-round series, Spoelstra said his team needed to do a better job of letting it fly in order to keep pace.
“I understand the math of it,” Spoelstra said, before adding, “We’re not going to shoot 50 of them. That’s not realistic.”
Maybe 50 3-point shots wasn’t quite realistic. But the upset-minded Heat did just fine with 43 attempts Wednesday night. And by finishing with a playoff franchise-record 23 treys, the Heat beat the Celtics 111-101 on the road in Game 2 to even the series at 1-1.
The series moves to Miami for Game 3 on Saturday.
The sheer nature of Wednesday’s upset is one of the reasons Game 2’s outcome was remarkable. Miami trailed by as much as 34 in Game 1, prompting many to believe that, without star wing Jimmy Butler or starter Terry Rozier, this would be a four-game sweep.
Instead, the Heat became the first playoff team in the past 30 years to win by double digits despite being an underdog of 14 points or more.
“We’ve been doubted a lot through our playoff runs, people saying we couldn’t do a lot of stuff that we [eventually] did,” said Miami big man Bam Adebayo, who had 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 10 boards. “So for me and my team, why lose belief now? Our backs are against the wall. Everybody’s against us. So just use that as fuel.
“Our guys believe we can win. So, let’s make it mano a mano — a cage fight. Let’s hoop.”
Tyler Herro’s Game 2 turnaround was the biggest. After scoring just 11 points on 13 shots in the opener, he had 24 points on 13 shots, including six 3-pointers, and added 14 assists (the second most in a game in Heat playoff history).
“Based on how we look right now [in terms of injuries], he’s going to be involved one way or another, and sometimes that’s going to mean making the right play over and over and over again,” Spoelstra said of Herro. “And he made the right read repeatedly tonight.”
Miami’s victory moved Spoelstra to 10-3 in his career in Game 2s after dropping the first game of a playoff series. Of those who have coached 10 such games, only Frank Vogel, who is 8-2 after a Game 1 loss, has a better winning percentage in NBA history.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said the natural adjustment after Miami’s historic shooting performance would be to press up on the Heat’s shooters more. But he cautioned against the notion of overcorrecting.
“We’re going to have to find a balance, because a lot of those shooters are also good drivers and are good at getting downhill,” Mazzulla said. “We have to find that balance of making sure we can close out appropriately so we don’t open up the other side of that.”