Heat Suddenly the Least Interesting of Celtics Possible Playoff Opponents

The Celtics’ win on Friday over the Heat in Miami perfectly mirrored what a potential playoff series could look like between the two teams. Some things remain the same in the fading rivalry, Tyler Herro occasionally hurting Boston’s defense with tough shots, Erik Spoelstra scheming up difficult defensive coverages against Jayson Tatum and those bright red uniforms that stretch back to the LeBron James days.

Beyond that, Miami barely resembles the team you could talk yourself into at least pushing the Celtics into a more difficult first round series than they’d prefer to play. The Heat, one month into the post-Jimmy Butler era, fell to 4-12 since Andrew Wiggins debuted against Boston on Feb. 10 in a similar loss to the one Miami suffered on Friday. They scored 91 points yesterday, forced 13 lead changes and six ties before fading late, but mostly struggled to put the ball in the net. In February, the Heat shot 36.4% after halftime, seeing more shots go in-and-out than I’d seen in a game recently. They finished 5-of-20 in the fourth quarter on Friday.

There’s no intrigue either. Bam Adebayo scored nine points on 3-of-7 shooting, Adebayo now Miami’s star and still hesitant to fully assert himself offensively all the time. Herro, a 2024 all-star, had no problem scoring 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting before halftime, including a bailout shot over Neemias Queta late in the clock, but defensively became a target for Jrue Holiday, who scored 20 points for the first time since Dec. 7. Wiggins, effective attacking mismatches himself, never instilled much fear with a 6-for-10 start and he closed 3-of-11.

That all amounts to the 23rd-ranked offense and 13th-best defense since Wiggins debuted last month.

The latest loss dropped Miami to ninth in the east, and while Chicago’s only one game behind them and 2.0 from the 7-8 play in game after four straight wins, Boston’s most likely playoff opponents boil down to Atlanta, Orlando and the Heat. A full drop out of the play-in for any of those four teams is highly improbable with Toronto, Brooklyn and Philadelphia positioning themselves for draft status at this point. Entering Friday, according to Basketball Reference, there was a 39.8% chance the Hawks finish seventh, 29.6% the Magic do while the Heat trailed a 22.7%.

Atlanta boasts the most intrigue despite none of those teams having much chance of pushing a series beyond five games. While the Hawks lost Jalen Johnson for the season, they’re 10-10 since, pretty much the pace they play at anyway. Trae Young makes them a borderline top-10 option, Quin Snyder coaches as well and like-minded against Joe Mazzulla as anyone and Atlanta defeated the Celtics in two weird games at TD Garden earlier this season. The Hawks, despite trading De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanović before the deadline, aren’t enormously different than the team that pushed Boston six games in the first round in 2023. Caris LeVert and Terance Mann are capable fill-ins for both of their lost rotation players.

Then there’s Orlando, losers of 9-of-14 and climbing slightly back toward the middle of the pack offensively with a top-10 defense that’s undeniable. Paolo Banchero is shooting 44.2% from the field and 31.9% from three since he returned from injury. Franz Wagner still can’t find his three-pointer (30.2%) stretching back to last season. Jalen Suggs is out for the season after undergoing knee surgery. The Magic rank third in defense and 28th in offense for the season, so they probably wouldn’t win more than one game, but recent regular season battles with Boston, including Cole Anthony’s personality and Eddie House’s slight that Orlando used as motivation previously at least provide more intrigue than anything in Miami.

A Heat series would likely feature four games that play out exactly like Friday’s. Ball pressure disrupted Tatum through his 3-for-11 start, he began passing out of crowds to Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard, who lifted him with 6-for-13 three point shooting. Wiggins and Herro combined for 17 points in the second quarter to tie the game at 50 entering halftime, the Heat forced seven Celtics turnovers and stayed competitive on the boards while generating 10 free throw attempts. Spoelstra scowled and searched for every advantage.

Then, Tatum emerged with 11 points in the third, Holiday kept hitting shots and Derrick White powered Boston through the non-Tatum minutes to begin the fourth. The Celtics won comfortably without Jaylen Brown or Kristaps Porziņģis, and the Heat didn’t even look capable of pulling off their one win from last season’s first round, when Miami went all-in on three point volume in Game 2. Otherwise, the Celtics have beat the Heat in 10 of their last 11 meetings.

A potential fourth straight year with a Celtics-Heat looms, and this one won’t even feature the promise of a Butler return from injury and competitiveness. Of course, Butler’s comments about how Miami would’ve won if he played in the 2024 series set off the feud with the team that led to his exit. And with Wiggins wearing his number, Davion Mitchell starting and Kyle Anderson the only other addition for now in that transaction, the Heat pose the least intriguing threat to the Celtics in the first round. Even if everyone would enjoy another trip to South Beach next month.