Gordon Hayward returned to the Celtics lineup in Game 3 and played 30 minutes. He helped Boston win its first game of the Eastern Conference finals. Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
The cliché is an NBA playoff series doesn’t begin until the road team wins. The flaw is that a best of seven can end without a road victory.
No matter, with the neutral courts of the NBA’s quarantine setting at Disney World eliminating that element, albeit with the “road” team now having won each of the first three games of the Eastern Conference finals.
But in at least one respect, an argument can be made, that even with the Miami Heat up 2-1 on the Celtics, the series began with Boston’s 117-106 Game 3 victory on Saturday night.
That was when the Celtics got forward Gordon Hayward back into their mix, after he had sat out over a month with a severely sprained right ankle. While he was limited to six points in his 30:30 of action, it got Boston back to their much-hyped “best five” lineup, of Hayward, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart.
As a matter of perspective, amid the Celtics’ injuries, the unit played 18 minutes together during the regular season. Saturday night, they played seven, a hint of a lot more to come. The unit had an offensive net rating of 162.5 and a defensive net rating of 76.5.
“Just his decision-making, his ability to make plays for others and for himself, it just opens up the floor so much more,” Tatum said. “They’ve got to respect him. So, it just – having a bunch of guys out there you really can’t hop off of, because everybody can shoot, knock down shots and make plays – I think makes it tough.”
And comforting.
“He is a stabilizing force for our team,” Celtics Coach Brad Stevens said, with the teams now in the midst of a three-day break before Wednesday’s 8:30 p.m. resumption for Game 4. “He just can make the right play and make a play for somebody else at the right time.”
And he is not going anywhere.
The initial plan for Hayward was to leave the Disney bubble to for the birth of his fourth child. But having been reunited with family during his time away from Disney due to the ankle rehab, that plan has changed.
“Robyn could be having a baby at any point in time,” Hayward said, “so I think it’s probably something that I’ll be here and by the time I get back, I might miss the birth if she just goes in and rushes into the hospital. So we discussed it, we prayed about it, and I think it’s probably best if I stay here and help our team.”
Defensive twist
Having previously gone with the approach for stretches in the series, the Celtics on Saturday night put Smart on Heat point guard Goran Dragic defensively from the outset. The result was an 11-point showing by Dragic, on 2-of-10 shooting, after scoring 29 and 25 points, respectively, in the series’ first two games.
“Marcus’ ball pressure on Dragic is obviously something that we need to continue to look at,” Stevens said. “Dragic is a great player and he’s a guy that’s playing the best I’ve ever seen him play. So we’ll just continue to accept matchups and do our best. But everybody’s got to guard hard.”
Kemba Walker, the diminutive point guard who largely had been defending Dragic, was switched in Game 3 on to Jae Crowder, the Heat’s de facto power forward. At 6 foot 6, with a six-inch height advantage on Walker, Crowder took all 10 of his Game 3 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc, closing 2 of 10.
Helping hands
While Boston was able to contain Dragic, the Celtics seemingly got to the rim with impunity, closing with 60-36 scoring edge in the paint. Heat forward Jimmy Butler said it has to be about more than counting on center Bam Adebayo to clean up at the rim.
“We just got to stay in front of our man, simple as that,” Butler said. “I think we put too much on Bam to always be there, and he can’t save us every single time.
“He’s great at help defense and he’s great on the ball, but he already does enough for us. You can’t just get beat and expect for Bam to come and save you every time.”
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