The Boston Celtics rallied back from down 19 to defeat Miami on their home floor, as Heat will drop to a 21-20 record. (Photo via Miami Heat/X)

Despite the Miami Heat coming out scorching offensively, they were unable to take care of business against the visiting Boston Celtics. Miami saw an early 19-point lead, including a 64-54 edge by halftime, vanish in the second half— particularly in the fourth quarter.

The Heat got throttled in that final period, as Boston had the overwhelming 36-21 advantage. Their comeback was spearheaded by Anfernee Simons dominant 39-point eruption on 13 of 28 shooting off the bench. Jaylen Brown also chipped in 27 points with some timely clutch shots down the stretch for the Celtics.

It was the second straight game of strong scoring efforts from all three of Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Norman Powell. They all combined for 70 points on 55% from the field.

Powell led with a team-high 26 points on an efficient 10 of 15 shooting alone.

Adebayo and Herro each added 22 points, as Herro came out on fire to begin the game— but unfortunately cooled off following halftime. That duo also both missed a pair of layups that could’ve brought the Heat to within 2 points on back-to-back possessions with under a minute left in the game.

Andrew Wiggins had a solid two-way impact with 16 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists. In Davion Mitchell’s absence with a shoulder contusion, Pelle Larsson filled in with the spot start. As for the bench, Miami missed Jaime Jaquez Jr’s playmaking in this one, especially to help match Simons scoring output for Boston’s second unit. Jaquez was also sidelined with a knee injury for this matchup.

Coach Erik Spoelstra oddly limited Kel’el Ware to just nine minutes of playing time as the backup big man. Because of that, there was virtually no real production off the bench outside of rookie Kasparas Jakucionis’ 12 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds in 27 minutes. Jakucionis received the most amount of time amongst the rest of the bench players.

All three of Dru Smith, Nikola Jovic and Simone Fontecchio provided minimal impacts.

Both the Heat and Celtics shot 45% as a team, with Miami owning a 36% edge in 3-point shooting to Boston’s 33%. But the real difference maker in Boston’s favor was the offensive rebounding. They owned the glass with a 51-40 advantage, including 18-12 on offensive boards— making Spoelstra’s limitations on Ware’s minutes questionable.

Miami will now have to somehow regroup for a rematch against the reigning champion OKC Thunder to conclude their homestand on Saturday night.

***

To check out our other content, click here.

Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter/X here!

Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram here!

Check out Hot Hot Hoops on Facebook here!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!