Boston Celtics leave it late to beat Big Three less Miami Heat 78-66: NBA Recap
On Tuesday night at the TD Garden, Boston, MA, the capacity crowd of 18624 were treated to low scoring game as the home side Boston Celtics defeated the visiting Miami Heat 78-66.
With the win Boston stay in contention for home court advantage in the playoffs against their Easter Conference rivals, the Atlanta Hawks. On the other hand, in the absence of their Big Three, Miami struggled to do much on their
offence as they recorded a season low of 66 points.
Both sides fielded out their depleted line ups, hoping to give their stars a fair share of rest as the regular season comes to an end. Aleksandar Pavlovic who was given a starting place on the night recorded a season high of 16
points in the game.
Marquis Daniels came off the bench to score 13 points in the game while Paul Pierce, Brandon Bass and Avery Bradley managed to contribute 8 points, individually.
In a game in which the Big Three of Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James did not feature for Miami. Dexter Pittman turned out to be their leading scorer who managed to record 12 points on the night. James Jones was the only
other player for the Heat scoring in double figures. He came off the bench to contribute 11 points, 9 of which came from behind the three point line.
Despite being undermanned on the night, Miami did manage to out-rebound the Celtics 44-38. However they dug themselves a hole while failing to handle the ball. Heat had a high number of 24 turnovers in the game which led to their
downfall.
Even though the scores depict a hopeless picture in scoring, however the Heat did manage to come out of the blocks early as they raced to an 11-0 lead. It took almost 7 minutes for the Celtics to register their first field goal
in the game, courtesy of a turnaround jump shot from Pierce.
Boston did manage to rally back and were able to get the advantage down to 5 at one point in the period. But by the end of the first 12 minutes the score was 17-10 in Miami`s favour.
In the second quarter, things turned around in Boston`s favour as they started the period on a 8-0 run to register their first lead of the night. From the Miami side, Jones responded with back to back three pointers to snatch back
the lead for the visiting side.
There wasn’t much to separate the two teams at the 3:44 mark as the home side trailed by 1. In the next minutes, Miami scores 6 quick unanswered points to put some daylight between the two teams. At the half way stage, the score
was 34-28 in Heat`s favour.
Inside the first three minutes of the second half, Miami were able to extend their advantage into double figure, courtesy of a Mike Miller three pointer. Heat, were ahead by 10 at the 6:10 mark in the third quarter.
From that point on Boston completely turned the game on its head. They rallied back on the basis of a 10-0 run to tie the game and by the end of three quarter`s game time passed, the scores remained equal at 50.
The action remained end to end in the final quarter as both sides looked to get ahead in the game. However, at one point in the final period, Celtics were able to extend their advantage to as much as 9 but the visitors were just
not letting up.
At the 3:59 mark, Miami trailed by 5 points at the score of 60-65. In the closing minutes of the game, Miami were unable to hold their nerve as they turned the ball over thrice in that frame. On the other hand, Boston were rather
better in their conversion rate as they outscored the Heat 13-6 to in that span to take this one by a lead of 12 points.
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