Rapid Recap is designed for the busiest of Celtics fans. Whether you can’t stay awake to read 10 paragraphs or your hangover is just too much, Rapid Recap tells the timeline of the game in only a minute or two.
Over the past several years the Miami Heat have played the Boston Celtics pretty well. I figured tonight’d be no exception under the stewardship of Chipotle- and monomania-fueled Jimmy Butler…until it REALLY was.
Boston played about 2.75 quarters of excellent basketball after a slow, grotesque start. Jaylen Brown almost tied his career high with a remarkable 31-point, 50% FG performance, and Kemba Walker wasn’t far behind (an extremely well-rounded 28-4-7-2-1 box score; also he was excellent even when his teammates were starting slow). On the Miami side, Butler’s massive 37-point attack didn’t make up for the remaining roster’s anemia.
The first quarter can best be summed up as follows:
Another slow start for the Celtics, except this time it felt like it had a lot to do with the other team.
— Tom Westerholm (@Tom_NBA) December 5, 2019
Celtics all over the place lmao
— Jayson al Gaib (@Handsome_Jake_) December 5, 2019
put in jayson with the bench guys and ths game will be tied in like 5 minutes
— david (@whaamncheese) December 5, 2019
Not great. Offense was especially tepid; defense only slightly better. The following clip is about as good as it got:
Kemba with the steal and nice backwards pass to Jaylen who finishes with the bucket pic.twitter.com/EnGrU2MpYb
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) December 5, 2019
Things didn’t improve for the first half of Q2:
The Celtics look like they showed up at 7:15 and missed warmups.
— Chuck M. (@McK_Chuck) December 5, 2019
https://twitter.com/Riffs_Man/status/1202395917409800192?s=20
We did get this rad defensive move by Carsen Edwards leading to a catch-and-shoot trey by Kemba, tho:
“I’ll be taking that.” –@Cboogie_3 pic.twitter.com/1acsHAQCPb
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 5, 2019
Boston tightened up its defense in the frame’s latter half, highlighted by aggressive deflections and forced turnovers. Walker and Tatum kept the scoring alive—particularly the former, who jumped from 8 to 17 points between quarters and stole the Heat’s lead.
Corner thr3⃣3⃣ from Jaylen pic.twitter.com/FtpyBw4rih
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) December 5, 2019
After trailing 37-26, the #Celtics closed out the 2Q with a 26-7 run to lead 52-44 at the half. Kemba Walker leads all scorers with 17 pts, Tatum has 13. The #Heat got 14 pts from Jimmy Butler w/Bam Adebayo chipping in 8 pts, 5 reb.
— A. Sherrod Blakely (@ASherrodblakely) December 5, 2019
By Q3 the Celtics weren’t in any way similar to the team that had started the game. As Tatum slowed down, Walker stayed on an even keel and Jaylen Brown decided to HURRY THE F**K UP:
https://twitter.com/maxacarlin/status/1202407778175897600?s=20
🚨Downtown Jaylen Brown 🚨 pic.twitter.com/zVdriFOxbi
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 5, 2019
Sheesh Jaylen! pic.twitter.com/WfFzCudN4T
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 5, 2019
A 😘 from Jaylen to the Miami Heat bench 🤣 pic.twitter.com/MjpLSs5qba
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) December 5, 2019
Butler was always going to heat back up (after going way cold in Q2), and did, but it didn’t seriously jeopardize the Celtics’ lead until very late in the frame. Even then, he had almost zero support.
Boston didn’t relent, keeping the lead on Miami at around 15 and at times jacking it up to 20 behind Brown, Walker, Tatum and a well-balanced bench attack.
Assorted ephemera from the rest of the night:
Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/IWhpgR6GxS
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 5, 2019
🎥🍿 @RealChalamet & @LauraDern pic.twitter.com/ARbDoUECNG
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) December 5, 2019
Kelly Olynyk just received an "MVP" chant at the free throw line
— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) December 5, 2019
Danny Ainge really underpaid for both Jaylen and Marcus Smart only to see both make big jumps the next season lmao
— Jayson al Gaib (@Handsome_Jake_) December 5, 2019
https://twitter.com/JonesyNBA/status/1202418748080177152?s=20
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