Celtics can’t survive Jimmy Butler in Game 1 with Marcus Smart, Al Horford out

MIAMI — The Celtics could always keep their eye on the target up until this point.

Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo, are the omnipresent current titans of the game. They are unavoidable and unmistakable, too tall to ever hide in a crowd. The entire defense tilts in their direction all game to keep them from getting where they will inevitably go anyway.

In the first two playoff rounds, the Celtics found great success making those players uncomfortable. Even as Antetokounmpo put up historic numbers, he was fighting until he finally lost steam in the end.

Now the Celtics face Jimmy Butler, in his annual postseason metamorphosis.

The Celtics came into the day hoping to get Marcus Smart back from a right midfoot sprain. Then, a few hours before tipoff, they lost him and Al Horford, who was placed in the health and safety protocols after the morning shootaround. At first, the Celtics looked ready to survive without those two. Then the Heat went back to the locker room at halftime and just completely figured them out. Butler lurked in the shadows and pounced on everyone in sight. An unbelievable 39-14 third quarter later, the Heat were positioned to lead the Eastern Conference finals with a 118-107 win.

“Obviously, we weren’t prepared to be without Al. We definitely weren’t prepared to be without Al and Smart,” Jaylen Brown said. “It’s not an excuse; we’ve got to be better.”

It’s the playoffs, and the star battles never stop. But after Boston began each of the first two series with a statement, Butler made sure the Celtics defense wouldn’t have the last word.

“He’s comfortable. He’s very comfortable right now,” Brown said. “We need to do a better job breaking that rhythm that he’s in.”

Smart and Horford are the tone-setters for the Celtics. Smart sets their edge, and Horford grounds their foundation. It’s what allows them to be both radioactive and stable at the same time. And it’s what Butler does all in one package for the Heat.

So Boston looked great for 24 minutes to start the night. The Celtics’ game plan worked nearly to perfection, Jayson Tatum was getting anywhere he wanted, Miami was out of rhythm on offense, and the Celtics just looked great. As the second half started, there was a different edge to the Heat defense. Then Butler started turning Boston over and over and over, racing out to fast-break buckets like it was a relay race. He turned Brown and Tatum into turnover machines (seven for Tatum), then hunted Boston’s weak links who had to step up the depth chart.

Forty-one points later, he was the centerpiece of Miami’s victory.

“Whenever we let our defense dictate our offense, we are a much better team,” Butler said. “We get stops. We get into the open floor. We whip that ball around to our shooters. That’s the style of basketball we call Miami Heat basketball. Gritty, doglike, worried about getting stops instead of worried about getting buckets.”

Miami was meticulous and precise in the third quarter, and Butler was at the forefront of it all.

“Jimmy just really inspired everybody in that third quarter,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Those two steals kind of changed the momentum. And then every time and pocket in the game when we needed to control the game or get the right shot or make right decision, Jimmy had his fingerprints on that.”

In the previous round, Antetokounmpo overwhelmed the Celtics every minute of the series, requiring just about everyone on the floor to deal with him. Butler isn’t quite the same type of challenge, even if he is a comparably insurmountable force when he reaches the playoffs. With Butler, you don’t have to completely sell out to keep him from the paint. You do a good job on him for a few seconds, think it’s over, then he senses a microsecond of relaxation and finds that sliver of an opening to do his damage.

Whereas Antetokounmpo is a comet hurtling toward earth, Butler is a SEAL team sneaking in under the cover of darkness.

“That’s what he does. We knew that going in,” Brown said. “Obviously, it’s a new series tonight so we’ve got to be able to transition. Tonight wasn’t our best night, but we let him get away with too much. Eighteen free throws, that’s way too many. We’ve got to be better. That’s all I can say.”

Butler, along with P.J. Tucker, saw Tatum get comfortable in the first half, then pulled the rug out from under him. Beyond just the sneaky interceptions on swing passes that got Miami’s juices flowing, there were so many plays when Tucker would funnel Tatum toward help, then reposition when he knew a Tatum spin was coming and take away the middle of the floor. The Celtics’ drive-and-kick game fell apart, often forcing Tatum to reset the ball to Payton Pritchard or make Aaron Nesmith the regrettable shooter.

Boston went from freely waltzing into the paint in the first half to entirely flustered as the Celtics tried to move the ball in the second. Spoelstra figured out at halftime how to have his team pre-rotated, creating situations where Tatum would get to his spot and look up to see his usual passing lanes blocked. He’d then try to improvise while already in a passing motion, leading to bizarre turnovers like this one.

“We contained the ball at the point of attack a little bit better. To say that you can do that mano y mano without any help is totally unrealistic,” Spoelstra said. “It has to be a team defense. You have to get in the gaps. You have to rotate. You have to make multiple efforts. They are going to get you scrambling at some point because they are going to — even if you cut off the first drive or the second drive, there’s going to be a spin dribble and then a scramble.”

It became even more apparent that Miami was ready for those scrambles when Boston had to survive without Tatum and Derrick White, relying on Pritchard and Brown to run the point. Milwaukee was easier to pick apart with drive-and-kicks, especially since the Bucks have some slower bigs or less-disciplined wings.

But Miami was just so good at rotating a step earlier to anticipate kick-outs to the point that the Heat didn’t have to make hard closeouts past the shooter.

Of course, in the middle of it all was Butler, guarding Rob Williams while stopping the ball in the paint twice in one play. He isn’t quite Antetokounmpo smacking away lofted floaters, but he is always in the right place at the right time to hold down his zone and force the action in another direction.

“They do propose different challenges, I guess,” Tatum said. “Just as a team, they’ve got guys that are really good defenders, play the passing lanes. We knew that coming in. Didn’t do a great job, obviously, with the turnovers. But watch some film tomorrow and make some adjustments.”

Butler put away the win by toying with Pritchard and Nesmith, and the shots he hit over Tatum in the fourth quarter were defended as well as possible.

But it was moments like when he just slid right under Brown for box-out position three minutes into the second half that epitomized what makes Butler such a headache for his opponents. With Boston still up by one point and Gabe Vincent nearly air-balling a bizarre early-clock 3-point attempt, Butler was just sitting there to put it back in as Brown watched helplessly.

That’s been a theme these past few weeks for Brown and Tatum. There are plenty of moments when they take a bad angle on a box-out and let a second-chance point happen. But then there are plays like that one where they just look limp on the glass.

When the Celtics have guys such as Pritchard and Nesmith stepping into bigger roles, they can’t afford for their best players to give up advantages on the margins like that. Especially against the superstar who lives in those nooks and crannies of the game and claims them as his domain.

“I like physicality. Like, I want to run into people and see who falls down first, who is going to quit first,” Butler said. “I think that’s the style of basketball I like to play. And so do they.“

Boston can clean up its laziness in Game 2 on Thursday. It can remember how to handle pressure with composure, something it did over and over to outlast the Bucks. The Celtics can find a way without Smart and Horford from a schematic perspective. But they can’t beat the Heat by being the ones who fall down first.