In this post we’ll go over the Eastern Conference Finals, giving our prediction, the reasoning, and also an explanation of what it would take for the other team to win and prove us wrong. Make sure to also check out our previous predictions for these playoffs, where we are 9/12 so far.
Miami Heat (1) vs Boston Celtics (2)
Prediction: Celtics win 4-2
Reasoning:
The 2022 Eastern Conference Finals is finally set, and it’s a rematch of the 2020 Eastern Conference Finals. The Heat and Celtics were the best teams in the East for the regular season, and they’ve kept it up during the playoffs.
After winning their first round series against the Atlanta Hawks easily in 5 games, the Heat continued to handle their business, beating the 76ers in 6 games. They had two strong performances against a 76ers team missing its MVP-candidate Joel Embiid, but then struggled offensively in the two next games once Embiid returned, allowing the 76ers to tie up the series at 2-2. However, in games 5 and 6, everything clicked offensively for the Heat, and they managed to blow out the 76ers twice in a row and close out the series.
On the other hand, the Boston Celtics pulled off another strong series win in the second round, this time against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. After losing game 1 at home, and losing games 3 and 5 by the narrowest of margins, the Celtics were in trouble, facing a 3-2 series deficit. However, on the back of 46 points from Jayson Tatum, the Celtics managed to win game 6 on the road, and they won game 7 on their home court in a 28-point blowout. It was a tough series to win, and beating the Heat probably won’t be much easier.
Overall, the Heat’s biggest strength has been their defense. In the first round, they held Hawks’ offensive star Trae Young to only 15.4 ppg on 31.9% from the field and 18.4% from 3 (he averaged 28.4 ppg on 46.0% from the field and 38.2% from 3 during the regular season), and also forced him into 6.2 turnovers per game. In the second round, they limited MVP runner-up Joel Embiid to 19.8 points per game on 42.6% from the field (he averaged 30.6 ppg on 49.9% from the field in the regular season). As a whole, the 76ers were only able to shoot 44.3% from the field, as opposed to 46.6% during the regular season; 33.7% from three, as opposed to 36.4% in the regular season; and most importantly they only had an offensive rating of 105.7 (this would’ve ranked 28th in the league), far less than their 113.5 during the regular season. The Heat were led by Jimmy Butler, who continued to shine, putting up 27.5 points on 51.3% from the field. The interesting thing for the Heat, though, is that no one else even averaged 20 points, which speaks to their depth and ability to plug in whoever is hot at the moment.
On the other end of the court, the stats indicate that the Heat performed at about the same level as the regular season: they had an offensive rating of 114.1 vs one of 113.7 during the regular season. However, this fell to 110.1 in the final 4 games once Embiid returned. They also did seem to struggle at times, as their streaky shooting resulted in 29.8% from three against the 76ers, a stark contrast to their #1 ranked 37.9% in the regular season.
The Celtics benefited in their second round series offensively due in part to the Bucks’ defensive scheme. Since the Bucks employ bigs like Brook Lopez, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Bobby Portis, often at with at least two on the court, they’ve implemented a system emphasizing drop coverage. This is where the big drops in pick-and-rolls in order to protect the paint, and it’s this focus on protecting the paint that led to a barrage of relatively open 3’s from the Celtics. Despite only shooting 35.6% from three in the regular season, the Celtics managed to increase it to 37.7% against the Bucks. That said, the Celtics are generally a streaky shooting team, and even though they succeeded with 3’s, the Bucks’ incredible interior presence led to the Celtics’ offensive rating falling from 114.4 to 109.8.
Defensively the Celtics were also relatively successful against Giannis. Although Giannis averaged 33.9 points per game, he did so on 45.7% shooting, far worse than his 55.3% in the regular season. Overall the Bucks were completely stifled, as their offensive rating of 101.7 was not only 13.4 less than their regular season average, but it would’ve placed dead-last in the regular season. It’s worth noting that part of the reason for this was the loss of Giannis’ co-star, Khris Middleton, who suffered an injury prior to the series. That said, this pattern of strong defensive peformances is nothing new for the Celtics, as they had the #2 defense during the regular season.
A concern for the Heat in this matchup is allowing the Celtics to continue their successful 3-point shooting. Similar to the Bucks, the Heat also gave up a lot of threes during the regular season, ranking second when adjusting for possessions. This could be problematic for the Heat, but they have reduced this habit in the playoffs. After giving up 39.5 attempts per game in the regular season, they’ve only given up 36.1 per game in the playoffs, and the good thing is they’ve held opponents to a horrible 33.2% shooting on these 3’s. The initial issue with the Heat was that at times they brought unnecessary help from the strong-side corners, which led to a lot more attempts for their opponents, but with more time to prepare and scheme for opponents in the playoffs, this habit has mostly subsided.
On defense, the Heat will likely employ Jimmy Butler to slow down Jayson Tatum, but this won’t be a huge factor given that the Heat switch the majority of ball screens. This won’t be a huge issue for them however, as they’re loaded with capable defenders who can slow down whoever’s in front of them.
Defensively for the Celtics, they’ll need to slow down Butler, who’s had to carry the brunt of the offensive load for the Heat. In 2020, when these two teams matched up, Butler had his lowest averages against the Celtics, as it was the other players on the Heat who stepped up. Overall the Heat benefited from a balanced attack of 4 players averaging between 19 and 22 points. The issue for the Heat, though, is that no one outside of Butler has shown any consistency offensively this playoffs. It will be tough for them to win a series where they only have one offensive star with only role players around him. Additionally, the Celtics won’t have to be too worried about the Heat’s three-point threat. In addition to being cold from distance, the Heat will also face a Celtics defense which has held its opponents to taking only 33.4% of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc, which would’ve ranked last in the league, and only make these at a 32.9% clip, which would’ve been dead last.
In head-to-head matchups this season, the Celtics won 2 out of 3. One of these was blowout loss for a healthy Heat team, but this was way back in the first week of November. In their other loss, the Heat missed Butler and Lowry, and in the Heat’s only win, both sides were healthy.
It’s also worth mentioning that Heat point guard Kyle Lowry had to miss multiple games in the series against the 76ers, as he suffered from a hamstring injury, and while this could easily continue to linger into the conference finals, we don’t expect this to play to significant of a role, as the Heat have plenty of depth, allowing them to replace his production.
Ultimately, the Heat seem to be a streaky team led by a star in Jimmy Butler, and although he has shown to be a strong playoff performer, he is still somewhat inconsistent. Coupling this with the Heat’s already weak offense gives the Celtics the edge.
Coming into the past two series, the Celtics were the better team, and we made the mistake of picking against them because in each case they did not have the best player in the series. However, the Celtics do have the best player in this upcoming series, and we expect them to win what will probably be a close matchup.
Why the Heat could still win:
The Heat could win the series and make it much closer simply by improving their offense. We already expect their defense to be extremely strong in the series, but it’s their offense that worries us. That said, we were concerned last round that Butler might fall off, but he’s still averaging 28.7 ppg on 52.5% shooting this playoffs, so if he can continue his dominance and either Adebayo or Herro can step up, as they’ve done in the past, the Heat could get enough to have their strong defense lead them to a second finals appearance in the last 3 years. Additionally, the Heat could benefit by an improvement in their three point shooting. Even though they’ve struggled recently and the Celtics are elite at guarding the 3, the Heat were the best 3-point shooting team in the regular season, so it’s still possible for their shooting to return back to its normal levels. The Heat have been the most dominant team so far in the playoffs, and there is real upset potential here.
All-Star Analytics 