Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 108-89 loss to the Boston Celtics (17-4) on
Monday night at TD Garden to close its winless two-game trip. The Heat (9-10)
now returns to Miami to host the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday:
With the Heat and Celtics playing on the second night of a back-to-back set
and also battling injury issues, both teams were missing a chunk of their
rotation. But the Celtics’ high-volume three-point shooting was still the
dierence.
The Heat played without Jimmy Butler (right knee soreness), Josh Christopher (G
League), Nikola Jovic (left ankle sprain), Kevin Love (back spasms), Josh
Richardson (illness) and Kel’el Ware (right foot tendinitis).
The Celtics were without Kristaps Porzingis (return from injury management),
Jrue Holiday (left knee tendinopathy), Al Horford (left big toe sprain) and Sam
Hauser (personal reasons).
But those absences didn’t deter the Celtics from continuing to lean on their highvolume three-point shooting attack to win the math equation and the game, as
they dominated the Heat 57-24 from three-point range on their way to the 19-
point win.
The Celtics entered the contest averaging an NBA-high in threes made (19.1 per
game) and threes attempted (50.7 per game).
Boston shot 19 of 55 (34.5 percent) from behind the arc on Monday.
Meanwhile, the the Heat had a rough shooting night, nishing just 8 of 35 (a
season-worst 22.9 percent) from three-point range. Miami also shot a seasonworst 35.6 percent from the eld in the loss.
“I thought we had some great looks at the basket,” Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.
said. “Sometimes they just don’t fall. They shoot a lot of threes and it’s our job to
try to contest and make it dicult for them. But it’s dicult when you’re not
making shots on the other end.”

Along with the Heat’s three-point shooting struggles on Monday, it also shot just
18 of 44 (40.9 percent) from inside the paint. That allowed the Celtics to also
outscore the Heat 40-30 in paint points.
“You hold them under 110, you feel like on the road that should be enough to
make it a possession game going down the stretch,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra
said. “But that just wasn’t the case. We would have had to make a lot of those
restricted area shots and some of those threes.”
The Heat only trailed by three at the end of the rst quarter, but the Celtics shot 7
of 15 (46.7 percent) from three-point range in the second quarter to break the
game open and enter halftime with a 15-point advantage.
The Celtics’ lead grew to as large as 27 points in the second half.
Jaylen Brown totaled a game-high 29 points to go with seven rebounds and four
assists for Boston.
Jayson Tatum added 18 points, 11 rebounds and four assists for the Celtics.
Payton Pritchard contributed 25 points, ve rebounds, four assists and two steals
o the Celtics’ bench.
For the Heat, it was a rough shooting night for nearly every player on the roster.
Heat guard Tyler Herro nished with 19 points, but shot just 6 of 19 from the eld
and 2 of 10 on threes.
Jaquez recorded a season-high 19 points to go with 10 rebounds and three assists,
but shot just 5 of 14 from the eld. He scored most of his points at the free-throw
line, shooting 9 of 12 at the charity stripe.
“We missed a lot of shots we normally make and that’s been the result a lot this
season,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said.
Adebayo’s season-long shooting slump continues.

Through the rst 18 games of his eighth NBA season, Adebayo entered Monday
averaging 15.7 points per game on 42.6 percent shooting from the eld after
shooting better than 50 percent from the eld in each of the rst seven seasons of
his NBA career.
Adebayo’s uncharacteristic shooting slump continued in Monday’s loss, as he
nished with 15 points on 6-of-18 shooting from the eld and 1-of-4 shooting on
threes.
After making his rst shot of Monday’s game — an 18-foot midrange jumper — to
open the scoring, he missed his next eight eld-goal attempts. He didn’t make his
second shot of the night until there was 1:49 left in the second quarter.
But after scoring only four points on 2-of-12 shooting from the eld through the
rst three quarters, Adebayo came alive to score 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting
from the eld and 1-of-2 shooting on threes in the fourth quarter with the Celtics
already in full control of the game.
Adebayo, a three-time NBA All-Star, has scored more than 20 points in three of the
Heat’s rst 19 games this season after doing so in 12 of the Heat’s rst 19 games
last season.
One of the weirdest aspects of Adebayo’s cold stretch is the fact that he entered
Monday shooting just 46.2 percent from inside the paint this season after
shooting 57.3 percent from inside the paint last season.
Adebayo shot just 4 of 11 (36.4 percent) from inside the paint on Monday,
including 1 of 4 (25 percent) at the rim.
“He’s built a career being able to make those shots and make those look easy,”
Spoelstra said. “It’s just one of those stretches that sometimes you can’t explain.”
Adeayo continues to do other things well, though. He contributed eight rebounds,
ve assists and one steal in Monday’s loss and has helped anchor the Heat’s
defense this season.

As for the Heat’s injuries, Spoelstra described Butler as “day to day” and said
Love “tweaked” his lingering back issue.
Butler, 35, missed Monday’s game with right knee soreness after tweaking his
knee late in Sunday’s loss to the Raptors in Toronto. With Butler missing four
games earlier this season because of a sprained right ankle, he has now been
unavailable for ve of the Heat’s rst 19 games.
The good news is that those around Butler are cautiously optimistic that the
injury is not a serious one that will keep him out for an extended period. There’s
currently no plan for Butler to undergo an MRI or X-ray on the knee.
“There’s no change,” Spoelstra said when asked about Butler’s status prior to
Monday’s game in Boston. “He’s not playing tonight. We’ll just treat him day to
day. He’s still sore. But we’ll see what happens when we get back to Miami.”
With Love, Monday marked the second game that he has missed in the last four
games with back spasms. Love, the Heat’s backup center, has now been
unavailable for 10 of the Heat’s rst 19 games after missing time because of
personal reasons earlier this season.
“This is the same back deal,” Spoelstra said of Love before Monday’s contest. “He
just tweaked it a little bit. It’s not as painful as the initial time. But enough so that
he wouldn’t be able to go tonight.”
The Heat’s other injured players were Jovic, Richardson and Ware, as they each
missed their second straight game with their ailments. Jovic and Richardson did
not travel with the team for the two-game trip and remained in Miami, but Ware
was with the Heat in Toronto and Boston.
With Butler out, the Heat used its fourth dierent starting lineup of the
season on Monday. But the Heat didn’t stick with that starting group to begin
the second half.
Jaquez received his rst start of the season, opening the contest in Butler’s place.
Jaquez began the game alongside the Heat’s four other usual starters — Herro,

Duncan Robinson, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo.
“When guys go down, it’s our job to step up and try to ll in those gaps,” Jaquez
said of lling in for Butler as part of the Heat’s starting group. “So coming into
this game, I knew I had to be aggressive. That was my mentality.”
This lineup played just four minutes together this season prior to starting
Monday’s game.
Unfortunately for the Heat, this starting unit didn’t produce positive results.
The Herro-Robinson-Jaquez-Highsmith-Adebayo combination began Monday’s
game by being outscored 17-9 during the rst 6:28 of the rst quarter before the
Heat made its rst substitution of the night. The Heat didn’t use that lineup again
for the rest of the game.
Instead, the Heat made an adjustment and started Dru Smith in Robinson’s place
to begin the second half.
“A lot of that was some of the defensive stu that we saw in the rst half and then
Dru gave us that spark,” Spoelstra said of the decision to start the second half
with Smith over Robinson. “… We were just trying to get some better matchups
and see if we could shake free Tyler o the ball. That wasn’t necessarily anything
with Duncan.”
Robinson played o the bench in the second half, nishing Monday’s loss with
ve points on 2-of-9 shooting from the eld and 0-of-6 shooting from three-point
range.
The Heat’s injury issues also gave some seldom-used players an opportunity
to play.
The Heat used Thomas Bryant, Terry Rozier, Pelle Larsson, Alec Burks, Keshad
Jonson and Smith o the bench on Monday to complete its 11-man rotation.

While Rozier, Larsson and Burks are rotation regulars at this point, Bryant and
Smith have fallen out of the Heat’s rotation. And Johnson has spent most of the
season in the G League as one of the Heat’s two-way contract players.
With Love and Ware out, Bryant played as the Heat’s backup center after
receiving 10 straight DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision). In Bryant’s rst
game action since Nov. 8, he nished Monday’s loss with two points and two
rebounds in 10 minutes.
Jaquez’s promotion to the starting lineup created a slot in the bench rotation for
Smith, who had played in just one of the previous 13 games. Smith closed
Monday’s defeat with eight points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals in 21
minutes in just his sixth appearance of the season.
Johnson, an undrafted rookie, entered for the rst regular-season minutes of his
NBA career with 4:19 left in Monday’s third quarter. He scored the rst points of
his NBA career on a dunk, nishing the loss with two points on 1-of-2 shooting
from the eld in seven minutes.
Each of the 11 Heat players who were available played on Monday.
The Celtics’ bench outscored the Heat’s reserves 36-21