The Miami Heat tied the Boston Celtics at 1:1 in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs after a 111:101 victory at the TD Garden. Thus, the “Hot”, who finished the regular season in eighth position, stole the home advantage of the leader after the first part of the championship Boston.
The visitors cruised to success with 23 3-pointers made from just 43 attempts, a club-record in playoff game history. The hero for Miami was Tyler Hiro, who finished with 24 points and 14 assists, with the guard making six of his shots from long range. Caleb Martin also played a very strong game, scoring five three-pointers from six attempts for a total of 21 points, and center Bam Adebayo finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds.
Miami took control of the game midway through the third quarter. Until then, the two teams exchanged the lead several times, but a 10:0 run allowed the guests from Florida to take an 82:70 lead. By the end, Boston never found an answer on how to get back into the game and will now have to look for a win away from home to advance to the second round of the playoffs.
Jaylen Brown finished with 33 points for the Celtics, but with him on the floor, the hosts were -22 in the +/- indicator. Jayson Tatum added 28 points, but 14 of them came in the first quarter. The Latvian Kristaps Porzingis was particularly ineffective. He made just one shot in nine attempts and was -32 in exactly 30 minutes of play.
The next two games of the series are in Miami, after which Boston will host Game 5.
In the other NBA game played tonight, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a decisive 124:92 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans. Thus, the Thunder have a 2-0 lead in the series for the first time since 2013.
The champion after the regular season in the Western Conference opened a double-digit lead at the end of the first quarter, which ended at 35:22, and until the end of the game the difference between the two teams continued to grow.
Shai Gilges-Alexander scored 33 points for the winners, and rookie Chet Holmgren had 26 more. Each of the hosts’ starters scored at least 13 points, making up for the modest contributions of the bench players, who finished with just 16 total points.
For the visitors from New Orleans, who are without their injured leader Zion Williamson, 19 points were scored by the Lithuanian Jonas Valanciunas. The next two games of the series are in New Orleans./BTA
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