ECF Celtics v Heat | Series Preview

The bubble rematch in the East is extremely intriguing. The Miami Heat have been in beast slayer mode

since they eliminated the best team in the NBA in 5 games. Sure, arguably the best player in the

world was injured and basically missed two games in that series in which Milwaukee dominated the first

game without their superstar and were still looked at like the favorite in that 1vs 8 match up. Jimmy

Butler had other plans as he went on an ungodly run and led the Heat passed the Bucks and right

through the sentimental favorite New York Knicks. The Celtics have been in the Conference finals 4 of

the last 6 seasons. They were considered the one of the favorites to win the whole thing this season

they’ve had relatively easy bumpy road through the playoffs by beating the Hawks in 6 games where

they never were really in any danger then the 7-game series with the 76ers that had its peaks and valleys,

but with big efforts from Brown, Robert Williams and Horford locking down the MVP, they get through Philly

with a big 50-point game from Tatum to advance to the conference final.

The stars will shine in this series, Jimmy Buckets and Jason Tatum will be keys to this series obviously, but what I’m more interested in and we’ve seen already with the Celtics is coach Joe Mazzulla. 34 year-old, first year head coach already has had issue with adjustments time outs and in just making decisions with rotations have been issues with this Celtics team during these playoffs. Mazzulla is learning on the job how else is he going to get this experience, but the issue is his team is far from a learning mind set. This team is ready to win now. Its outside of the Nuggets the most complete team left in the playoffs besides its head coach. Now you look at the Heat sitting there with in my opinion the best head coach in the NBA in Erik Spoelstra. He’s been here before his team are always around and with the way Jimmy Butler is playing with the rest of the flow with Love, Bam and Lowry coming off the bench the Heat are in a good position to win another Eastern conference finals. I think in this series its going to come down to coaching and the Heat have the edge.