The Boston Celtics looked like they might be on their way to a big win on Wednesday night in Miami as Rajon Rondo had his offense hitting on all cylinders in the first half. It apparently wasn’t meant to be for Boston, however, because Dwyane Wade re-ignited the Heat in the second half to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals before heading to Boston.
Wednesday night’s game had to be heartbreaking for the Celtics faithful considering they were able to watch Rondo have what may very well have been the best game of his young career. For fans just hoping for a stellar game of basketball, though, it was one of the better games in this year’s playoffs ... at least as far as the guard play was concerned. Wade found a way to score 23 points in 44 minutes after just two points in the first half and, while it certainly wasn’t as impressive box score-wise as Rondo’s 44 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists while playing all 53 minutes, it was just enough to help Miami defend their homecourt by way of a 115-111 overtime victory.
Rondo looked like he would be garnering all the headlines early on the way to a win: his jumpers were falling, he connected consistently from the charity stripe and scored a career-high in points in what was almost a must-win game -- and that’s before mentioning the near triple-double while having to be almost exhausted due to playing every minute of an overtime game. In all honesty, after Rondo’s stellar play allowed the Celtics to jump out to a 36-21 lead, there were probably quite a few people in the viewing audience anticipating a tied series heading into Friday night’s Game 3 -- how bad would Boston have to play to give up a 15-point lead considering they were already able to keep Wade out of the scoring column?
Boston never ended up playing bad, basketball though; in fact, they continued to play quite well. The Heat changed their defensive schemes and were able to bottle Rondo up for a significant portion of the third quarter but, after that, the resilient point guard rebounded and returned to the scoring role he’d adopted in the first half. It was, especially considering the circumstances, one of the most impressive performances submitted in this year’s NBA Playoffs (at a minimum).
Unfortunately for Rondo and Co., though, Wade woke up in the second half.
Wade’s first half performance made it look like he was going to find his way into the headlines for all of the wrong reasons after being held to just two points, by way of a lay-up, late in the first half. He came alive after halftime, though, spurring the Heat to a 12-0 run following a beautiful block on Ray Allen breakaway. Rondo and the Celtics eventually bounce back from that run thanks to some defensive adjustments of their own, but Wade once again turned on the jets down the stretch -- on both ends of the court -- allowing fellow superstar teammate LeBron James to avoid the “un-clutch” headlines while also forcing Boston to have to try and figure out how to win four of the next five games.
The Western Conference Finals matchup has shown how brilliant team basketball can be, but Wednesday night’s game in the East showed just how important individual players still can be in today’s NBA. It wasn’t as though Rondo and Wade didn’t get their teammates involved, because they did, but both players figured out what their team needed them to do and when to do it, resulting in a frenetically fun game down the stretch and into overtime.
It’s going to be difficult for Rondo to outdo himself for Game 3 back in Boston, but it had to worry the Heat that he was able to take on a scoring role -- and excel at that, even from deep -- because a less-than-heroic second half from Wade would have steered this series in a whole different direction. That obviously isn’t the case, though, and now the onus is on Boston to figure out the next step in the game plan. It won’t be easy, either, considering even holding Wade to such small contributions through the first 24 minutes wasn’t enough on Wednesday night.