Celtics trounce Heat for 6th straight win

The Boston Celtics’ late December/early January swoon is becoming a distant memory as the defending NBA champions shot out to a big first quarter lead and never looked back en route to a 98-83 road victory at Miami on Wednesday night.  Former Heat guard Eddie House had a big game against his old team to bolster the efforts of the Celtics’ usual scoring threats as Miami lost its fourth straight home matchup against Boston.

Boston led 29-10 at the end of the first quarter, and the Heat would be unable to cut their lead to within double digits for the rest of the game.  House had a monstrous performance in the 2nd quarter with 20 points—more than he’d scored in any game this season—and finished with 25.  The Celtics were led by 27 from Ray Allen, while Kevin Garnett added 16 points and 13 rebounds. 

The Heat were led by Dwayne Wade with 25 points—the only Miami starter to score more than 6.  With the slow start, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra decided to shake up his rotation and gave significant minutes to reserves Daequan Cook and Michael Beasley.  Cook responded with 20 points, while Beasley contributed 17 points and 11 boards.  Despite the solid performance from his reserves Spolestra was none too pleased with his team’s effort:

"I'm not sure I recognized what team was out there. We were doing things that I hadn't seen us do this season."

After the lopsided first quarter, the Heat would get no closer than 11.  Dwayne Wade noted that any time his team started to make a run, someone on the Celtics would step up and snuff the rally:

"There were some backbreakers out there, Eddie House early on, then Ray Allen. They did a good job of knowing where we were going to be."

Michael Beasley criticized his team for being intimidated by the Celtics:

"We were terrible defensively. We let a team come in and get into our heads. They kind of threw us off our game."

The Celtics improved to 35-9 with the win and will meet the 33-8 Orlando Magic in a heavyweight battle on Thursday night.  They’ll then return home to host Dallas on Sunday and Sacramento on Wednesday.   Miami dropped to 22-19 with the loss and will get the first shot at the high flying Magic on Saturday night at the American Airlines Arena.  Atlanta and Washington will visit South Florida next week for games on Monday and Wednesday.