Boston Celtics (24-15, third in the Eastern Conference) vs. Miami Heat (21-19, eighth in the Eastern Conference); Miami; Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: Boston faces Miami in Eastern Conference action Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Heat have gone 12-11 against Eastern Conference teams. Miami has a 4-2 record in games decided by less than 4 points.<\/p>\n
The Celtics are 17-9 against Eastern Conference opponents. Boston leads the Eastern Conference allowing only 110.1 points per game while holding opponents to 45.0% shooting.<\/p>\n
The 119.6 points per game the Heat average are 9.5 more points than the Celtics give up (110.1). The Celtics average 15.7 made 3-pointers per game this season, 1.8 more made shots on average than the 13.9 per game the Heat allow.<\/p>\n
The teams square off for the second time this season. In the last matchup on Dec. 20 the Celtics won 129-116 led by 33 points from Derrick White, while Kel’el Ware scored 24 points for the Heat.<\/p>\n
TOP PERFORMERS: Norman Powell is averaging 23.9 points for the Heat. Andrew Wiggins is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
Jaylen Brown is averaging 29.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and five assists for the Celtics. White is averaging 19.7 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LAST 10 GAMES: Heat: 6-4, averaging 120.5 points, 45.5 rebounds, 29.2 assists, 10.7 steals and 4.1 blocks per game while shooting 46.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 118.3 points per game.<\/p>\n
Celtics: 6-4, averaging 118.4 points, 45.6 rebounds, 23.7 assists, 7.1 steals and 5.0 blocks per game while shooting 48.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 110.6 points.<\/p>\n
INJURIES: Heat: Davion Mitchell: day to day (shoulder).<\/p>\n
Celtics: Josh Minott: day to day (ankle), Jayson Tatum: out (achilles), Jaylen Brown: day to day (back).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics (24-15, third in the Eastern Conference) vs. Miami Heat (21-19, eighth in the Eastern Conference); Miami;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[4592,4594,4591,2097,7,45,75,3798,46,4593,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-536059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-app-around-maine","9":"tag-app-in-the-community","10":"tag-around-maine-more-maine-news","11":"tag-associated-press","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-boston","14":"tag-boston-celtics","15":"tag-bostonceltics","16":"tag-celtics","17":"tag-maine","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115893649022661932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}