Heat’s ECF lead down to 3-2 after Game 5 loss to Celtics. Takeaways, why Butler remains confident

Not much has come easy for the Miami Heat this season and that’s holding true in the Eastern Conference finals.

The eighth-seeded Heat’s 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 series is down to 3-2 after the second-seeded Boston Celtics dominated Game 5 to earn a 110-97 victory on Thursday night at TD Garden. The Celtics have won the last two games by double digits.

“Their activity level has gone up the last two games, and that’s what you have to expect in a competitive playoff series,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

The Heat’s next opportunity to close out the series and punch its ticket to the NBA Finals will come in Game 6 on Saturday in Miami.

Whatever happens, history will be made when this series is over. The Celtics are trying to become the first team in league history to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-7 series and the Heat is hoping to become the second No. 8 seed in league history to advance to the NBA Finals.

Game 5 belonged to the Celtics from the start, opening the first quarter on a 23-7 run to energize the Boston crowd.

Boston’s lead grew to as large as 20 points in the first half before entering halftime ahead by 17.

Miami never held a lead in the game and never really got close after Boston’s hot start, as the Celtics led by as many as 24 points. The Heat trailed by double digits for the entire second half.

Four Celtics players scored more than 20 points: Derrick White finished with 24, Marcus Smart finished with 23, Jayson Tatum finished with 21 and Jaylen Brown finished with 21.

The Heat shot an efficient 51.3 percent from the field and 39.1 percent from three-point range, but still lost by 13 points.

Duncan Robinson scored a team-high 18 points for the Heat. Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler finished with 16 points and 14 points, respectively.

After outscoring the Celtics by 39 points through the first three games of the East finals, the Heat has been outscored by a total of 30 points in the last two games.

The Heat remains confident it will be able to end the series in Miami on Saturday.

“We’ve just got to play better,” Butler said. “Start the game off better, on the starters, make it more difficult for them. They are in a rhythm since the beginning of the game. But we are always going to stay positive, knowing that we can and we will win this series. We’ll just have to close it out at home.”

Five takeaways from the Heat’s Game 5 loss to the Celtics on Thursday:

The Celtics’ replicated their winning formula from Game 4 to dominate Game 5.

Boston earned a 17-point win on Tuesday by outscoring Miami 54-24 from three-point range and 27-14 in points off turnovers.

The Celtics won by double digits again on Thursday by outscoring the Heat 48-27 from three-point range and 27-19 in points off turnovers.

Boston controlled those two areas from the start in Game 5, shooting 7 of 12 (58.3 percent) on threes and scoring 10 points off six Heat turnovers in the first quarter. That allowed the Celtics to close the opening period with a 35-20 lead.

The Celtics entered halftime with a 17-point lead behind a 33-12 advantage from three-point range and 17-9 advantage in points off turnovers.

The Celtics shot 16 of 39 (41 percent) from beyond the arc in Game 5 to improve to 38-2 this season when shooting 40 percent or better on threes. White (6 of 8) and Smart (4 of 6) combined to shoot 10 of 14 (71.4 percent) from behind the three-point line in the win.

After shooting just 29.2 percent from deep through the first three games of the series, the Celtics have shot 40.5 percent from three-point range in the last two games to look more like the team that closed the regular season with the second-most made threes in the NBA behind only the Golden State Warriors.

The team that has shot a higher percentage from three-point range has won each of the first five games of the East finals.

It didn’t help that the Heat put up just 23 threes to the Celtics’ 39 three-point attempts in Game 5. It’s the fourth-fewest three-point attempts that Miami has finished a game with this season.

Then throw in the fact that the Heat was outscored 17-7 in second-chance points and it’s no surprise that this was a blowout win for the Celtics.

Another thing that didn’t go Miami’s way: The Heat’s leading duo did not play up to their high standard.

Adebayo and Butler both turned in underwhelming performances in Game 5, combining for 30 points on 13-of-25 (52 percent) shooting from the field. They combined to average 43.1 points per game on 49.2 percent shooting from the field through the first four games of the series.

But they were especially quiet in the first half, when the Celtics were building their double-digit lead that held up in the second half. Adebayo and Butler totaled just 14 points on 5-of-16 (31.3 percent) shooting from the field in the first two quarters.

Adebayo began Thursday’s loss by missing seven of his first 10 field-goal attempts. He got going in the third quarter when the Celtics were already ahead by double digits to finish Game 5 with 16 points, eight rebounds and three assists to six turnovers.

Butler scored just eight points on 2-of-7 shooting from the field in the first half and closed Game 5 with 14 points, five rebounds, five assists and two turnovers.

Adebayo did not play in the fourth quarter and Butler played just the first 2:13 of the fourth quarter in the lopsided loss.

The Celtics have made an adjustment to send extra defenders at Adebayo and Butler more frequently in the last few games and it has worked to throw them off their rhythm. Miami will need to respond with their own adjustments to get them cleaner looks in Game 6.

“We all have to make sure that our two main guys are playing in their strength zones, and that’s on all of us,” Spoelstra said. “That’s on me and that’s on everybody executing with intention.”

Veteran guard Kyle Lowry made his first start in more than three months.

With Heat starting guard Gabe Vincent missing Game 5 because of a sprained left ankle he sustained in Tuesday’s Game 4 loss, Lowry started in his place on Thursday. It marked Lowry’s first start since Feb. 2.

But it didn’t go well.

With Lowry opening the contest alongside the Heat’s four other usual starters Max Strus, Butler, Kevin Love and Adebayo, the Celtics began the game on a 15-5 run before Miami subbed in Caleb Martin for Love.

Lowry ended Game 5 with five points, two rebounds and one assist to four turnovers. He took just five field-goal attempts.

That was not enough to make up for Vincent’s absence. Vincent is averaging 17.5 points per game on an ultra-efficient 57.9 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent shooting from three-point range in the East finals.

Lowry actually began the season as the Heat’s starting point guard, but he become an important part of Miami’s bench rotation since returning two months ago on March 11 from a 15-game absence due to left knee soreness. He was back in the starting lineup on Thursday and could again start Saturday if Vincent is unable to play because of his ankle injury.

Vincent’s status for the rest of the series remains unclear.

Forward Haywood Highsmith took Lowry’s place in the bench rotation and eventually took Love’s spot in the starting lineup in Game 5.

Highsmith logged his first meaningful minutes of the East finals in Game 5. He played a total of seven minutes in first four games of the series, but they all came toward the end of lopsided results.

After playing 12 minutes off the bench in the first half of Game 5, Highsmith opened the second half in Love’s place in the starting lineup. The Heat has been outscored by 36 points per 100 possessions with Love on the court in the last two games, forcing Spoelstra to make the change.

Love still played 8:40 in the second half, but those minutes mostly came as the backup center when Adebayo wasn’t in the game.

When asked after Thursday’s loss if a more permanent change to the starting lineup is coming, Spoelstra said: “We’ll see. We’ll see who is available. See if Gabe is available. I can’t answer that right now.”

As for Highsmith, he was one of the few bright spots for the Heat on Thursday. He finished with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 shooting on threes to go along with two steals in 36 minutes.

The rest of the Heat’s four-man bench rotation remained the same, with Caleb Martin, Cody Zeller and Robinson playing as reserves before both teams emptied their benches in the fourth quarter.

The Heat’s bench actually outscored the Celtics’ reserves 53-15 in Game 5. The problem is the Heat’s starting lineup was outscored 95-44 by the Celtics’ starters.

The good news for the Heat is it’s still ahead in the series, but the pressure will be on Miami in Game 6.

By building a 3-0 lead in the series, the Heat earned four chances to close it out. That’s now down to two opportunities after consecutive losses.

“Just to really not forget this,” Robinson said of Spoelstra’s message after Game 5. “Shift our focus to Saturday, but let this sting. Let this carry with us, and do what it takes to just maintain that edge that we play our best with.”

No NBA team has ever rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-7 series in 150 such scenarios. The Celtics are halfway to pulling it off, needing two more wins in Game 6 in Miami on Saturday and Game 7 in Boston on Monday to do the unprecedented.

Three teams have come back from a 3-0 series deficit to force a Game 7. It last happened in the 2003 playoffs, when the Portland Trail Blazers dropped the first three games of a first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks before forcing a Game 7 that the Mavericks won.

The Heat stands one win away from clinching its seventh NBA Finals appearance in franchise history and sixth NBA Finals appearance in the last 13 seasons.

Game 6 is the Heat’s final home game of the series, so it holds extra importance for Miami. A Heat loss in Game 6 would force a series-deciding Game 7 on Monday in Boston.

Meanwhile, the Denver Nuggets already clinched a spot in the NBA Finals and are getting some time off after completing the 4-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals on Monday night. Game 1 of the NBA Finals is June 1.