Celtics crush Butler-less Heat to take Game 1. Takeaways and details from a rough day for Heat

After shocking the basketball world by making the NBA Finals as a No. 8 seed last season, the short-handed Miami Heat didn’t deliver any surprises in its first playoff game this season.

At one point ahead by 34 points, the top-seeded Boston Celtics crushed the eighth-seeded Heat 114-94 on Sunday afternoon at TD Garden to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 first-round playoff series.

Without its best player Jimmy Butler because of a sprained MCL, the Heat trailed from start to finish against a Celtics team that entered as heavy favorites to win the series.

“It’s clear, Boston controlled this game from the tip,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “The very first possession, offensive rebound and three. And from there, they controlled it.”

The Celtics opened the game by scoring the first 14 points. Boston led by as many as 18 points in the first half before entering halftime ahead 60-45.

The Heat made a few runs in the first half, cutting the deficit to three points early in the second quarter. But the Celtics responded with a 22-7 run to push their lead back up to 18 just a few minutes later and again take full control of the game.

It only got worse in the second half, as the Celtics’ lead grew to as large as 34 points in the second half.

The Heat used a late 30-10 run to cut the deficit to 14 points with 2:52 to play. But that’s the closest the Heat got, as the Celtics held on for the 20-point win.

“I feel like the start of the game was the icing for them,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “They got off to a large lead and they kind of held on to that throughout the game. … So I think it’s a different result if we don’t let them get off to a hot start.”

But even in the lopsided affair, tensions flared between the Heat and Celtics after Heat forward Caleb Martin hip-checked Celtics forward Jayson Tatum down to the court while battling for a rebound with 59.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter. It was ruled a common foul, but technicals were called on Martin and Celtics forward Jaylen Brown for exchanging words following the hard foul.

“Just a hard foul,” Martin said of the play. “I tried to go help him up. I just heard him hit the floor. Obviously, I know I hit him pretty hard. But momentum was carrying me and I think I got pushed into that direction.”

Adebayo (24 points, six rebounds and three assists), Jaime Jaquez Jr. (16 points, four rebounds and four assists) and Delon Wright (17 points and three assists) combined for 57 points on 58.5 percent shooting from the field for the Heat. But the rest of the roster totaled just 37 points on 35 percent shooting from the field.

Heat guard Tyler Herro struggled, finishing with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting from the field and 3-of-9 shooting on threes.. He started 2 of 10 from the field before hitting two of his final three shots.

Meanwhile, six Celtics players finished with double-digit points led by 23 points from Tatum, who also closed with 10 rebounds and 10 assists for a triple-double.

This marks the third straight season that the Heat and Celtics have faced off in the playoffs, with the previous two matchups coming in the Eastern Conference finals. The Celtics eliminated the Heat in 2022, the Heat eliminated the Celtics on 2023 and the Celtics are now three wins away from ousting the Heat this year.

Game 2 of the series is Wednesday at TD Garden (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and TNT).

“You have to give them credit,” Spoelstra said. “They won the big muscle areas, definitely won the three-point line and the majority of the areas in between, including defensively. They were up and into us, getting us out of our normal flow and rhythm. So we have to do a much better job by Wednesday.”

Five takeaways from the Heat’s blowout loss to the Celtics on Sunday:

The injury-depleted Heat simply could not keep up with the Celtics’ high-powered offense.

This isn’t a surprise, considering Boston posted the NBA’s top offensive rating in the regular season and the Heat finished the regular season with the 21st-ranked offensive rating.

Throw in the fact that the Heat is missing two of its top scorers in Butler and Terry Rozier because of injuries and this is a major advantage for the Celtics.

It certainty was a big advantage in Game 1, as the Celtics outscored the Heat 66-36 from three-point range.

In addition to shooting a higher percentage on threes on Sunday, Boston also put up a lot more threes than Miami.

By halftime, the Celtics had already taken 30 threes to the Heat’s 14..

The Celtics shot 22 of 49 (44.9 percent) from behind the arc in the win. The Heat closed the loss just 12 of 37 (32.4 percent) from three-point range.

“They shot almost 50 threes,” Herro said. “We knew that coming in. They’re a volume three-point shooting team that gets a lot of threes up per game and that’s their game plan.”

Even with the Heat outscoring the Celtics 44-24 in the paint, a 30-point deficit from deep was too much for Miami to overcome. It didn’t help that the Heat also allowed the Celtics to close Game 1 with a 10-5 edge in offensive rebounds.

Seven Celtics players (Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Sam Hauser, Brown, Jrue Holiday, Payton Pritchard and Al Horford) made multiple threes on Sunday.

For the Heat, Wright matched his career-high with five made threes. But take away Wright’s perfect 5-of-5 performance on threes and the rest of the Heat’s roster shot just 7 of 32 (21.9 percent) from behind the arc in Game 1.

The Celtics’ 22 made threes on Sunday tied their franchise record for a playoff game. For the Heat, it marked just the third time in its franchise history that it has allowed 22 or more three-point makes in a playoff game.

The Heat scored just 105.6 points per 100 possessions in the loss for an offensive rating that would have ranked last in the league among teams during the regular season.

The Celtics scored 126.7 points per 100 possessions in the win for an offensive rating that would have ranked first in the league during the regular season.

The difference between the two offenses proved to be the biggest difference in Game 1.

Without Butler and Rozier, the Heat’s last two first-round picks made their first playoff starts on Sunday.

Jaime Jaquez Jr, the Heat’s first-round pick in 2023, and Nikola Jovic, the Heat’s first-round pick in 2022, started alongside Herro, Martin and Adebayo against the Celtics.

There were some early “Welcome to the playoffs” moments for both Jaquez and Jovic on Sunday.

For Jaquez, a few of those moments came in the first two minutes of Game 1, when Brown spun past Jaquez and threw down a dunk on him just 48 seconds into the game and Jaquez then had his own dunk attempt blocked by Holiday a few possessions later.

Jovic then airballed an 18-foot jumper midway through the first quarter.

But both settled down, remained aggressive and produced positive moments during an otherwise rough day for the Heat.

Jaquez closed with 16 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field, four rebounds and four assists.

Jovic finished with 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes and six rebounds.

“Definitely, you could feel the difference from regular-season games to the playoffs,” Jaquez said. “The intensity level, the fans, the energy, everything is just heightened. But you get your feet wet and then it just becomes basketball.”

Duncan Robinson played in his second straight game for the Heat after missing time because of a back injury.

After logging 12 minutes off the bench in his first game back in Friday’s playoff-clinching win over the Chicago Bulls, Robinson finished Sunday’s loss with five points on 1-of-3 shooting on threes in 15 minutes off the bench.

“No, he’s ready to go,” Spoelstra said when asked before Game 1 if there was a minutes restriction on Robinson.

Prior to playing in the last two games, Robinson did not play in five straight games because of a lingering back injury labeled as left facet syndrome. Robinson initially missed five games last month with the back issue before returning to play in five games and then again being sidelined by the injury.

Robinson was part of the Heat’s four-man bench rotation that also included Haywood Highsmith, Kevin Love and Wright on Sunday.

Rozier was with the Heat in Boston, but his status for the series is still in doubt.

Sunday marked the seventh straight game that Rozier has missed with what’s listed as neck spasms and he’s also expected to miss Wednesday’s Game 2. His status for Game 3 and beyond remains up in the air.

Rozier traveled with the Heat to Boston and was riding an exercise bike before Game 1 near the Heat’s locker room at TD Garden.

“The diagnosis is the same,” Spoelstra said when asked about Rozier during his pregame media session on Sunday. “So we’ll continue to treat him. He’s day-to-day. I’ll give you an update when we get an update.”

Along with missing Butler and Rozier on Sunday, the Heat was without Josh Richardson (season-ending shoulder surgery).

The only Celtics player unavailable for Game 1 was backup center Luke Kornet (strained right calf).

The Heat’s uphill battle in this series has become stepper.

That’s probably obvious because the Heat is now down 1-0 in the series. But entering this year’s playoffs, teams that drop Game 1 of a best-of-7 series have gone on to lose the series 75.3 percent (149-454) of the time.

The last time the Heat won a playoff series after losing Game 1 was when it dropped the first game in the 2014 Eastern Conference finals against the Indiana Pacers and then went on to take the best-of-7 series 4-2.

“We know we’re going into this with people doubting us and people not believing in us,” Adebayo said. “But the guys in that locker room believe. As long as the guys in the locker room and coaching staff believe, we always have a chance.”

As for the other series in the Heat’s half of the Eastern Conference bracket, the fourth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers earned a Game 1 win over the fifth-seeded Orlando Magic on Saturday. The winner of the Heat-Celtics series will play the winner of the Cavaliers-Magic series in the second round.