The Boston Celtics received 23 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists from Jayson Tatum and breezed to a 114-94 victory over the visiting Miami Heat on Sunday in Game 1 of a first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.
“His mindset approach throughout the game was great,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said of Tatum. “I thought he played with great patience, thought he picked and chose the spots very well.”
The top-seeded Celtics made 22 of 49 attempts from 3-point range (44.9 percent). All eight Celtics who saw playing time made a 3-point attempt. Eighth-seeded Miami was 12 of 37 (32.4 percent) from 3-point range.
Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Wednesday in Boston.
Derrick White (20 points), Kristaps Porzingis (18), Jaylen Brown (17), Sam Hauser (12) and Al Horford (10) also scored in double figures for Boston, which won all three meetings with Miami during the regular season.
“We had a good week of practice, and we’re ready to go,” White said. “We got a good win in Game 1. We made them work (on offense). They’re going to keep coming at us for 48 minutes, so learn from this one and get ready for Game 2.”
Miami’s Bam Adebayo led all scorers with 24 points. Delon Wright came off the bench to score 17 and Jaime Jaquez Jr. added 16.
“It’s clear Boston controlled this game from the tip,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They won the big-muscle areas, definitely won the 3-point line and the areas in between.”
Miami used a 26-7 run to pull within 103-88 with 3:58 remaining, but the Heat failed to get any closer than 14 in the final minutes.
“Credit to Boston,” said Miami’s Tyler Herro, who was limited to 11 points on 4-for-13 shooting from the field, including 3 of 9 from 3-point range. “I thought they came out with a lot of energy. They really applied pressure from the beginning on both ends of the court.”
Boston scored the game’s first 14 points. Miami didn’t get on the scoreboard until Adebayo made a jumper with 8:44 left in the first quarter. Boston led 17-2 with 8:26 to play in the quarter, but the Heat outscored the Celtics 19-9 the rest of the way to make it a 26-21 game after 12 minutes.
The Celtics had their largest lead of the first half at 18 points after Tatum capped a 9-0 run with two free throws that put Boston up 48-30 with 7:03 to play before the break. The Celtics made 12 of 30 attempts from 3-point range and led 60-45 at halftime.
Boston held Miami to 14 points in the third quarter. The Celtics went on a 15-0 run and had an 89-57 advantage when White made a 3-pointer with 31.9 seconds left in the third. Boston made 7 of 13 attempts from distance in the quarter.
–Field Level Media
