Heat heading to Denver for NBA Finals after Game 7 win against Celtics in Boston

Instead of falling on the wrong side of history, the Miami Heat made its own history.

Exactly one year after the Heat fell to the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of last season’s Eastern Conference finals on May 29, 2022, the eighth-seeded Heat shocked the second-seeded Celtics for a 103-84 win in Game 7 of this season’s East finals on Monday night at TD Garden to become just the second No. 8 seed in league history to advance to the NBA Finals.

The Heat won the best-of-7 conference finals 4-3. In the process, the Heat avoided becoming the first team in NBA history to lose a best-of-7 series after winning the first three games.

“What happened last year, obviously, was on our mind, and it drove us this year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “That’s what you always hope for with competition, that it can drive you to a higher level. I think that’s what you saw in this series, this year, to be able to have to overcome a lot of stuff.”

The Heat now travels to Denver to open the NBA Finals against the Nuggets on Thursday. It marks the Heat’s seventh NBA Finals appearance in franchise history and sixth NBA Finals appearance in the past 13 seasons.

“Nobody is satisfied,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said. “We haven’t done anything. We don’t play just to win the Eastern Conference; we play to win the whole thing.”

The Heat quieted a crazed Boston crowd early, winning the first quarter 22-15 behind a dominant defensive effort and some bad Celtics shooting. The Celtics scored just 15 points on 6-of-23 shooting from the field and missed all 10 of their attempts from three-point range while committing four turnovers in the opening period.

Monday’s first quarter went down as Boston’s lowest-scoring quarter of this year’s playoffs.

The Heat carried that momentum into the second quarter, pulling ahead by as many as 17 points in the first half before entering halftime ahead by 11.

The Celtics tried to make a run in the third quarter, pulling within six, but the Heat held strong to enter the fourth quarter with a 10-point lead. Caleb Martin (nine points in the third) and Butler (eight points in the third) combined for 17 points in the period to help the Heat withstand the Celtics’ push.

The Heat then closed the door on the Celtics, opening the fourth quarter on a 16-5 run to extend its lead to 21 with 6:55 to play.

The Heat’s duo of Butler and Martin was the driving force behind the Heat’s first Game 7 road win in franchise history. Miami lost its first two road Game 7s.

Butler closed with a game-high 28 points to go with seven rebounds and six assists. He was voted as the East finals MVP by a panel of media members.

Martin finished with 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.

Butler and Martin are only the second duo in Heat history to each score 25 points in a series-clinching conference finals win, according to ESPN Stats & Info. They joined LeBron James and Chris Bosh, who did it in 2014 against the Indiana Pacers.

The Heat also used an efficient three-point shooting display, finishing 14 of 28 (50 percent) from beyond the arc to outscore the Celtics 42-27 from three-point range. Boston shot just 9 of 42 (21.4 percent) on threes.

Monday’s remarkable Game 7 win in Boston is just the continuation of the Heat’s magical playoff run.

Just six weeks ago, the Heat trailed the Chicago Bulls by three points with three minutes left in the fourth quarter of the final Eastern Conference play-in game. A loss would have ended the Heat’s season without a playoff berth for the first time since the 2018-19 season and just the fourth time in Spoelstra’s 15 seasons as the team’s head coach.

But the Heat found a way to win that game to extend its season, qualifying for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed. The rest is history — literally and figuratively.

“I think probably people can relate to this team,” Spoelstra said. “Life is hard. Professional sports is just kind of a reflection sometimes of life, that things don’t always go your way. The inevitable setbacks happen and it’s how you deal with that collectively. There’s a lot of different ways that it can go. It can sap your spirit. It can take a team down for whatever reason. With this group, it’s steeled us and made us closer and made us tougher.”

Five takeaways from the Heat’s Game 7 win over the Celtics on Monday:

Even with Butler named East finals MVP, an argument can be made that Martin was the Heat’s most valuable player during the East finals.

Martin capped his standout conference finals with a season-high 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting from the field in his second consecutive start after playing as a reserve in 15 of the Heat’s first 16 games of this year’s playoffs. The 26 points tied for the second-most points Martin has scored in a game during his NBA career.

In the East finals, Martin averaged 19.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game while shooting an incredible 60.2 percent shooting from the field and an incredible 22 of 45 (48.9 percent) from three-point range. He was also a perfect 9 of 9 on non-paint twos in the series.

“Caleb definitely made a name for himself,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said.

Only Butler averaged more points than Martin in the East finals. Martin received four of the nine votes for the series MVP to Butler’s five votes.

“If you’re a real competitor and it’s in your soul, and that’s what Caleb is, he’s a competitor,” Spoelstra said. “Every bit the competitor that you talk about with Jimmy or Bam or whatever. Caleb is a competitor.”

Adebayo and Butler didn’t turn in their best performances in Game 7, but they did enough to bounce back from disappointing displays in Game 6.

Adebayo closed Saturday’s Game 6 loss with 11 points, 13 rebounds and five assists, but shot just 4 of 16 from the field. It marked the first game in Adebayo’s NBA career that he has made four or fewer field goals when taking more than 15 shots.

Butler nearly recorded a triple-double in Game 6 with 24 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists, but he shot just 5 of 21 from the field. It marked just the fourth game in Butler’s NBA career that he has made five or fewer field goals when taking more than 20 shots.

Adebayo again struggled to generate points in Game 7. He scored just 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field. But he contributed 10 rebounds and seven assists in 43 minutes.

Butler finished Game 7 with 28 points on 12-of-28 shooting from the field and 3-of-7 shooting on threes, seven rebounds, six assists and three steals in 43 minutes.

The Heat somehow found a way to win the East finals despite Adebayo averaging just 14.9 points per game in the series and Butler shooting just 42 percent from the field in the series. Miami’s defense and supporting cast were enough to help push the Heat to the NBA Finals, along with Adebayo and Butler’s contributions.

Celtics star Jayson Tatum turned his ankle on the opening possession, and he seemed bothered by it the rest of the night.

Tatum was fouled by Heat guard Gabe Vincent on the first possession of Game 7 and was slow to get up after falling to the court.

Tatum finished the loss with just 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting from three-point range, 11 rebounds and four assists. He did not seem to have his usual explosion on Monday after taking that early foul.

“It’s tough because it kind of impacted me the rest of the night,” Tatum said. “It swelled up and it was just frustrating that I was kind of like a shell of myself. It was tough to move.”

No Celtics player hit the 20-point mark, as Jaylen Brown and Derrick White each scored more points than Tatum in Game 7.

Brown finished with a team-high 19 points on an inefficient 8-of-23 shooting from the field and 1-of-9 shooting from three-point range.

White added 18 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field and 2-of-9 shooting on threes.

The zone again helped the Heat in a big game.

The Heat allowed just 0.56 points per possession on the 34 defensive possessions it used zone in Game 7, according to Synergy Sports.

This is a continuation of a series-long trend. In the first six games of the series, Boston scored just 0.85 points scored per possession against Miami’s zone defense compared to 1.07 points scored per possession against Miami’s man defense in half-court situations during the East finals.

The zone has been a big part of the Heat’s defensive package all year.

Miami set a new modern-day NBA record for the most zone possessions played in a regular season this season and leaned on that scheme to win Game 7.

“If your best players aren’t defenders, it’s hard to create a good defense,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s defensive versatility. “We have Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, they care about defending and doing the tough things. It’s pretty easy to figure out the rest of the stuff, and schematics are not it. It’s committing to doing tough things.”

Next up for the Heat: A trip to Denver to begin the NBA Finals on Thursday against the Nuggets.

With the Nuggets sweeping their way through the conference finals on the other side of the bracket, the Nuggets will be well rested when they begin the best-of-7 championship series. Denver completed the 4-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals on May 22 and has nine days off before Game 1 of the Finals.

The NBA Finals schedule looks like this: Game 1 on Thursday in Denver at 8:30 p.m., Game 2 on Sunday in Denver at 8 p.m., Game 3 on June 7 in Miami at 8:30 p.m., Game 4 on June 9 in Miami at 8:30 p.m., Game 5 on June 12 in Denver at 8:30 p.m., Game 6 on June 15 in Miami at 8:30 p.m. and Game 7 on June 18 in Denver at 8 p.m. All of the games will be on ABC.

“Everybody’s confidence is so high,” Butler said. “We have belief that we can do something incredibly special. So we are going to hit the ground running when we get to Denver, and I like our chances.”

The Heat lost both regular-season matchups against the Nikola Jokic-led Nuggets and has struggled against Denver in recent years. The Heat has dropped six straight games and 11 of its previous 13 meetings against the Nuggets dating back to the 2016-17 season.

The Nuggets closed the regular season as the West’s top playoff seed with a 53-29 record. Denver posted the league’s fifth-ranked offensive rating and 15th-ranked defensive rating this regular season.

While Butler has been one of the NBA’s best players during this year’s playoffs, so has Jokic.

Jokic has been sensational for the Nuggets, averaging a triple double with 29.9 points, 13.3 rebounds and 10.3 assists in this year’s playoffs while shooting 53.8 percent from the field and 47.4 percent from three-point range. He has already set a new NBA record with eight triple-doubles in the playoffs.