Celtics' surprising lineup change pays dividends
Celtics coach Brad Stevens announced a lineup change before Game 3 that seemed to catch the Boston reporters by surprise. Stevens used journeyman Gerald Green instead of power forward Amir Johnson.
Even one of the follow-up questions to Stevens mention this as a "radical" change.
"A little bit. But I think the biggest thing I want to be able to do and our guys want to be able to do is we want to be able to spread them on offense and shoot the ball," Stevens said. "Then on defense, I just think if we're going to not play two bigs, we've got to be long and athletic on the perimeter and we've got to go help each other rebound."
The 6-foot-7 Green is definitely more of a small forward and has never brought much consistency in his 10 NBA seasons. He averaged 5.6 points this year and didn't play at all in 14 of the final 25 regular-season games. He didn't play in Game 2, either.
Green finished with 8 points in Game 3 and the plan seemed to work. At the start of the game, Boston tried to spread things out on offense and beat the Bulls off the dribble, without setting screens. The Bulls had been blitzing screens with two defenders in Games 1 and 2. Once the Celtics started knocking down 3-pointers on Friday, just about everything opened up on offense.
Rondo talks about thumb:
After Game 3, Rajon Rondo described what happened to his right thumb in Boston. He went to the podium Friday with a cast on his right wrist and a small brace on the thumb. Rondo has been dealing with a sprained right wrist late in the season and the cast is to help that injury while the thumb heals.
"I'm not sure the time, but I know it was the second half, third quarter. I think it was an inbounds pass over to (Al) Horford and I swiped up to make a play on the ball and I knew right then and there there was something wrong with my thumb," Rondo said. "I continued to play and didn't think nothing of it. It was painful, but this is the playoffs."
Rondo knew even before Thursday's practice that something was wrong.
"I practiced yesterday, but I didn't have any contact," he said. "Whenever I was able to try to make contact or pick a ball up, it was pretty painful. I knew something was wrong. My finger was blue.
"I've had a couple problems with my right hand the last month of the season and I was still able to take a couple days off and it healed on its own or it got a little bit better. I'm hoping it's the same thing with my thumb."
Thomas returns from home visit:
As planned, Celtics all-star guard Isaiah Thomas was in town and ready to play in Game 3. Thomas spent the previous two days visiting family in his hometown of Seattle following the death of his younger sister Chyna in a car accident.
"I think he's feeling better. It's been a really hard week," Boston coach Brad Stevens said before the game. "He's going to have his ups and downs. I think going to Seattle was a good thing, but it was hard. Again, I think seeing his dad and being around his family, that support network was important.
"There's always going to be ups and downs, still inside a week. I'm glad he went, he's glad he went."
Thomas finished with 16 points and 9 assists in Game 3.
Heat's Riley annoyed:
Miami Heat president Pat Riley expressed some frustration about losing the tiebreaker to the Bulls for the eighth spot in the playoffs. Both teams finished 41-41, but the Bulls won the season series 2-1.
"We should have had two games in Miami against Chicago," Riley said, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "That's ridiculous. It should have been a 2-2 tiebreaker. If we played two here, maybe we'd be in the playoffs. That should not be part of the tiebreaker, head-to-head. It should be on the court."
The fact that the Bulls and Miami played three times this season is just 82-game math. Teams are assured of playing all the teams within their division four times each, but there are always four teams in the same conference they'll play just three times.
And Riley should be reminded, the Bulls won the lone game in Miami on Nov. 10. More significant than the location was the timing. The Heat started 10-31, then finished 31-10, and two of the three matchups happened early in the season.