What more do the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat have in store for Monday night's Game 7?
This year's Eastern Conference finals already have made history, with the Celtics becoming just the fourth team in 151 chances to rally from a 3-0 deficit to force a Game 7 (8:30 p.m. ET on TNT). That hadn't happened since the Portland Trail Blazers won Games 4-6 against the Dallas Mavericks in 2003 -- a span of 82 consecutive series.
Of those four teams to reach Game 7, Boston is the best positioned to complete the unprecedented comeback by virtue of hosting it. Yet if we've learned anything from the first six games of the series, culminating in Celtics guard Derrick White's improbable tip-in a mere fraction of a second before the Game 6 buzzer in Miami, it's to expect the unexpected.
Let's take a look back at the factors that have contributed to the historic swing between the first three games of the series, all Heat wins, and the three consecutive Celtics victories to tie the series. And let's also consider how those elements could play out in Game 7.
Shot quality vs. shot volume
This series has been an extreme version of the NBA's "make-or-miss league" identity. That's funny to say after a Game 6 that Boston won with its lowest 3-point percentage all season (20%), making the Celtics just the second team across the 2022-23 regular season and playoffs to win with such poor 3-point shooting in a game in which the opponents shot better than 40% beyond the arc, according to ESPN's Tim Bontemps.
Still, even Game 6 was clearly a triumph of shot-making.
Miami took 15 more shots, a difference that can't be explained by free throw attempts (the Celtics had a 34-29 advantage at the foul line). The Heat pulled down 17 offensive rebounds -- one shy of their season and playoff high -- and tied their season low with five turnovers yet lost anyway because of their inability to make 2-point shots. Along with Boston's blowout defeat in Game 3, it was the second time this series a team has lost despite a huge advantage in shot volume.
The way Miami shot poorly in the paint in Game 6 (16-for-52, 31%) was undoubtedly more attributable to the Celtics' defense, and in particular Robert Williams III's rim protection. But it was out of line with the rest of the series. Through the first five games, the Heat had shot 56% (114-for-204) in the paint per NBA Advanced Stats.
As a result, Boston surpassed Miami in Second Spectrum's quantified shot-making metric (qSM) in Game 6, which estimates how much the team's actual effective field goal percentage exceeds what we'd expect based on the location and type of shots taken, distance of nearby defenders and the ability of the shooter. That brought the team leading this metric to 6-0 in the series.
Predicting the team that shoots better in Game 7 will win the game hardly qualifies as insight. There's a reason "make-or-miss league" was a cliché before we had the data to prove the importance of shot-making, but this series is a testament to the importance of considering it.
When the Celtics were being pilloried for falling behind 3-0 in the series, it was largely because of two outlier shooting games out of the first three. Only Game 2, which Miami won by six on the road, had been close to the average shot-making differential for the two teams. Since then, Boston has had the edge in all three games, winning the one time shooting was close to even (Game 5) thanks to an advantage in shot volume.
Let this be a reminder not to jump to conclusions the next time a team grabs the edge in the series thanks largely to hot shooting. To alter Hall of Fame baseball manager Earl Weaver's famous line about starting pitchers, momentum is the next day's shot-making.
Celtics still struggle in the clutch
Remarkably, White's tip-in gave Boston its first win by fewer than eight points all postseason. The Celtics had been 0-5 in games decided by five points or fewer, with just one loss by double digits -- the lopsided defeat in Game 3 of this series.
Particularly over the small sample size of the NBA playoffs, clutch performance can be extraordinarily noisy. Yet the Celtics' difficulty in these situations has been a consistent theme across their past two playoff runs. Boston has been outscored by 11.4 points per 100 possessions in what NBA Advanced Stats defines as clutch situations -- game within five points in the last five minutes of regulation or any overtime -- after posting a minus-14.2 net rating in these situations last year.
Meanwhile, the Heat's plus-32.3 net rating in the clutch is the best in the playoffs for a team with more than 15 qualifying minutes since ... the 2020 Heat outscored opponents by 38.9 points per 100 possessions en route to the NBA Finals, beating the Celtics in the conference finals along the way.
Given those track records, it's not surprising that Boston's two single-digit wins against Miami in the past two conference finals (this series' Game 6 and last year's Game 7, both on the road) were more a case of coasting to the finish line on empty than actually outplaying the Heat down the stretch.
Although the Celtics' offense went cold late in Game 6, producing no field goals in the last 4:56 until White's putback, over the course of this year's playoffs Boston has scored close to league average in clutch situations. Furthermore, Second Spectrum's quantified shot probability (qSP) data suggests the Celtics have actually gotten good shot attempts late in games, based on the same factors that go into qSM.
The bigger issue has been Boston's late-game defense. The Celtics have given up 1.29 points per possession in clutch situations, according to NBA Advanced Stats, worst of any team with at least 15 such minutes. By contrast, Miami is allowing just 0.91 points per possession in the clutch.
It's certainly possible Boston closes out with a narrow win, particularly if the Celtics can take a lead into that stretch such as in Game 6. But heart rates will be a lot lower inside TD Garden if Boston is able to put the game away early, as in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Philadelphia 76ers 15 days ago, a comfortable 112-88 win.
Can 'Playoff Jimmy' summon one last masterpiece?
As compared to last year, when Jimmy Butler received a vote for the Larry Bird Eastern Conference finals MVP in a losing effort after scoring 82 points in the last two games, this hasn't been as dominant a performance. Since posting a 30.9 game score in Miami's Game 1 road win, he hasn't surpassed 24.2 in any game -- a mark he reached in seven of his first 12 playoff games this year.
Overall, Butler's .526 true shooting percentage in this series is the fourth lowest among the 21 he has played in his career, ahead of only two series with the Chicago Bulls (2014 vs. the Washington Wizards and 2015 vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers) and the Heat's first-round sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021.
We've still seen Butler be a difference-maker in the fourth quarter in this series. He has scored 32.3 points per 36 minutes in the final frame -- most of any player -- while improving his true shooting percentage to .552. If Miami can just get to the fourth within striking distance, Butler is more than capable of taking over and leading his team to victory.
The question is whether the Heat can get there without a better first three quarters from Butler, who has totaled 47 points on 15-for-42 shooting over that span of the past three games. On the road, with other players limited, Miami might need a full 48 minutes of "Playoff Jimmy" on Monday night.