The Boston Celtics will be returning to the TD Garden after a great victory in Minnesota. They are now sitting alone atop the Atlantic Division for the first time all season. The Celtics’ 21-point win was their largest over the Timberwolves since 1995 and their largest in Minnesota since 1991. Now the Celtics are back home for a two-game homestand. This will actually be the first set of consecutive home games for them since March 6. Boston is riding an impressive 4-game winning streak, the longest current winning streak in the Eastern Conference. However, the Celtics will soon take on two of the four best teams in the NBA: the Miami Heat on Sunday and the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday.
It has been a very long time since the Celtics last met the Heat on the hardwood. Since they last faced each other, the Celtics have faced 27 different NBA teams and the Heat have faced 26. In their first matchup of the 2011-12 season on December 27 in Miami, the Celtics lost, 115-107, and only led for a grand total of 14 seconds. On that day, Sasha Pavlovic and Jermaine O’Neal started for Boston (instead of now Paul Pierce and Brandon Bass), Norris Cole led all scorers with 14 fourth-quarter points (he has scored at least 14 points in only two other games this season) and Keyon Dooling scored 18 points (still his season-high). Yeah, it has been a while since the Big 3 faced the other Big 3.
Nevertheless, this marquee matchup begins the final month of the NBA regular season and what appears to be an extremely tough test for the Celtics, including 3 games against Heat. Out of Boston’s 15 games in April, 12 of them are against potential playoff teams. Therefore, every game will be important for a team that is struggling to keep healthy bodies in the lineup.
In contrast, on the other bench, Miami has remained especially healthy in such a condensed season. Since they have only had a few minor injuries thus far, the Heat will head into Sunday with their opening day lineup of Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Joel Anthony, each of whom are in the top 20 of 1-player plus/minus for the 2011-12 season: LeBron (1st in the NBA: +400), Chalmers (3rd: +354), Wade (4th: +332), Bosh (5th: +324) and Anthony (17th: +249). This lineup also commands a plus/minus of +121 this season, which is good for the 3rd best 5-player combination in the NBA. In addition, when Miami has that starting lineup this season, they are 27-9.
Although many of the overall statistics point in favor of the Heat winning Sunday’s game in Boston, the Celtics still have a chance. They have won 7 games in a row at the TD Garden, which is the 2nd longest current home winning streak in the league. They have a home record of 18-8 this season while the Heat have a road record of 16-11. If you compare this to Miami’s NBA-best 21-2 home record and 15 straight home wins, you should be happy this game is in Boston.
However, they will be without Mickael Pietrus, Chris Wilcox and Jermaine O’Neal. They will at best have Ray Allen playing for the first time in over a week and a half, so the Celtics will need their guards to step up. Obviously, starting PG Rajon Rondo has been the quarterback of this offense for a while, and he has been moving the ball very well lately. Rondo now has double-digit assists in 12 consecutive games, the longest regular season streak in the NBA since 2008. Moreover, Rondo plays very well in nationally televised games: 13 of his 17 career regular season and playoff triple-doubles have been on national television. The Celtics have won 16 of those 17 games. Also, do you know who led all scorers at halftime on Friday night in Minnesota? It was Avery Bradley with his 14 points. The Celtics have won all 4 games since Bradley has entered the starting lineup. In those 4 games, his stats are the following: 15.0 PPG, 53% FG% and 12 for 13 (92%) FT. In his previous 45 games this season, he only attempted 37 free throws (0.8 per game). As far as contribution from the bench, do not sleep on Keyon Dooling, who is getting healthy once again. With Bradley now starting, Dooling has been a great guard off the bench for Boston. In his last 6 games, he has provided a much-needed boost for the bench by shooting a fantastic 54% from the field.
Along with the backcourt, the Celtics’ starting frontcourt will need to continue to play as well as they have recently. Kevin Garnett has been playing his best basketball in a while. After Friday’s 24-point/10-rebound performance, KG has back-to-back 20-point/10-rebound games for the second time this season. The last time he had two such streaks was the 2007-08 season. Another interesting development has been Paul Pierce’s resurgence this past month. Over the first few months of the season, The Truth was not only working his way back into shape from the lockout, but was also battling a bruised right heel. It seems like Pierce is back to full strength because he had 6 games of at least 25 points in 17 March games. This was after having only 3 such games in his previous 31 games this season. The Celtics are 9-0 this season when Pierce scores at least 25 points. Without many rebounders for the Celtics, Pierce and Garnett will be immensely important for the majority of offensive possessions down the stretch of the season. That includes Sunday’s big game on ABC vs. the Heat.
