As series returns to Boston, depleted Heat facing ‘significant challenge’ to keep season alive

For the second time in less than a year, the Miami Heat faces elimination in Boston.

The first elimination game resulted in one of the Heat’s most memorable wins, earning the first Game 7 road victory in franchise history in last season’s Eastern Conference finals on May 29 at TD Garden to end the Celtics’ season and become just the second No. 8 seed in league history to advance to the NBA Finals.

But the Heat arrives in Boston for another elimination game this week in a much different position despite again being the East’s No. 8 seed, trailing the top-seeded Celtics 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs. The Heat will need to win three straight elimination games, beginning with Game 5 on Wednesday at TD Garden (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and TNT) to keep its season alive and advance to the second round.

“Back against the wall going to Boston, we’ve been here before,” Heat forward Caleb Martin said after Monday night’s 102-88 Game 4 loss to the Celtics at Kaseya Center.

The issue is the Heat, which dropped Games 3 and 4 at home by a total of 34 points, is facing a situation that not many teams have come back from. Entering this year’s playoffs, teams that fall behind 3-1 in a best-of-7 series have gone on to lose the series 95.4 percent of the time (13-268).

The Heat has come back from such a deficit only once in franchise history, rallying from a 3-1 series deficit to win a second-round matchup against the New York Knicks during the 1997 playoffs.

The Heat will need to win two elimination games in Boston (Games 5 on Wednesday and 7 on Sunday) and one in Miami (Game 6 on Friday) this week to win the series

“Get our minds right, that’s it,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said of the team’s approach to the challenge ahead. “Get our minds right, get on this flight and just wrap our mind around getting one game in Boston and figure it out from there.”

Another important factor that makes Wednesday’s elimination game in Boston different than last year’s? Last season’s East finals MVP Jimmy Butler won’t play.

Butler has not been available for the Heat’s first-round series against the Celtics after spraining the MCL in his right knee during the play-in tournament earlier this month. Also in this year’s series against the Celtics, the undermanned Heat has been without starting guard Terry Rozier because of neck spasms and three-point shooting forward Duncan Robinson has been limited because of a lingering back injury.

Without Butler and Rozier’s dynamic offensive skill sets and Robinson not able to provide his usual elite outside shooting, the Heat’s offense has struggled in the series. Miami has been held under the 100-point mark in three of the first four games of the first round and shot just shot 18 of 61 (29.5 percent) from behind the arc in Games 3 and 4 after setting a new franchise record for threes made in a playoff game with 23 three-point makes in its Game 2 win in Boston.

Even with the Heat’s defense limiting a historically great Celtics offense to 116 points per 100 possessions through the first four games of the series — below their top-ranked regular-season offensive rating of 122.2 points scored per 100 possessions — it hasn’t been enough.

“Our guys are battling,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after Monday’s 14-point Game 4 loss. “I know it’s tough to recognize that if you see the score like this. But our guys are putting everything out there, everything. There’s not a ton left in the tank in terms of defensively. We do need to put some points on the board. We’re not going to hold this team to 70. I have great confidence in our defense, but holding this team to the low 100s is pretty significant with the way they can shoot and the way they can stretch you out.”

Spoelstra then expressed confidence that the Heat is on the verge of an offensive breakthrough as it sits on the brink of elimination.

“I know in my heart, we have a game,” Spoelstra said. “We have a game, it’s there. It’s just a matter of the ball going in a few more times and all of a sudden it ignites and then it just keeps on going. We’ve proven we can win a bunch of different ways, but I think we have a game. I think we have an offensive game in us and then continue to defend and compete like this.”

In order to avoid being overwhelmed by the daunting task it faces against a Celtics team that finished the regular season with the NBA’s top record at 64-18, the Heat’s goal on Wednesday will be simply to bring the series back to Miami for Game 6 on Friday.

“Our guys really want to get this thing back to Miami and have just a great game in front of our fans,” Spoelstra said. “I know it and the guys have talked about it. That’s what we’ll focus on.”

Following Monday’s Game 4 loss, Martin said the Heat has “to kind of get some swag back.” Heat captain and All-Star center Bam Adebayo added “everybody knows what’s at stake.” Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. made clear “we’re not going anywhere.”

“This is what the playoffs are about,” Spoelstra said. “You feel a certain way after a loss. You re-group, you rally around each other, you focus on the task at hand. It’s going to be an incredible environment up in Boston. Our guys love those kinds of environments, they love the competition, they love the challenge. This is a significant challenge with Boston and our guys love that.”

The short-handed Heat’s challenge will be to beat the Celtics three straight times to overcome this 3-1 hole and take the series.

How tough will that be to pull off? The Celtics’ longest losing skid this season is two games.

“Nobody wants to be in this type of position,” Martin said. “But we got a lot of guys who have been fighting to even get to this point in their careers or whatever. So this isn’t the worst we’ve seen when it comes to this basketball stuff. At the end of the day, we’re getting to play one of the best teams in the East and we’re in the postseason while a lot of guys aren’t playing right now. So we don’t have a lot to complain about. We just need to go out and have fun and play, compete.”