The East Conference is going to be a long series, game 1 of the Celtics and Heat was just a demo of that as the game went into overtime when Bam Adebayo incredibly blocked Jayson Tatum basket as Miami won with 117-114. This is going to be a closely-contested series and here’s why:
Boston’s Marcus Smart and Miami’s Tyler Herro are the potential X factors for their respective teams but we have underappreciated members pulling ranks in this series, Miami’s Duncan Robinson and Boston’s Kemba Walker.
Heat is known for playing Zone defense throughout the series, but they need to be mindful as the Celtics have experience with Toronto's defense and were efficient against Heat during game 1.
On three different occasions, Heat ran a sideline out-of-bounds (SLOB) play where Adebayo flashing to the strong-side elbow and the inbounder getting a back screen from another guard approaching from the strong-side block and this forces defenses to make a difficult decision how it guards the back-screen.