The Celtics beat the Heat last night to take a somewhat surprising 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. While Miami has excelled in transition on offense, their transition defense was simply abysmal last night. Time after time, the Celtics beat the Heat down the floor and exploited holes in Miami’s defense early in the shot clock. Here’s a representative example where Garnett’s man simply refuses to find him, and he makes his way down the lane for an easy — and ferocious — dunk.

Embedded video

Not to take anything away from Boston, whose extra effort won the game last night, but Miami played like a stereotype of the talented, entitled team. Their energy was low, they got beat to 50/50 rebounds and lost loose balls. The other difference? Boston hit shots. The teams’ overall field goal percentage was about the same, but Boston won the three-point battle 40% to 29%. In a close game in which Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Mickael Pietrus hit huge shots down the stretch, that mattered.

Now the Celtics’ old legs are one game away from the NBA finals. The Celtics also proved last night that they can gut out close games when one or two of their stars don’t have it going. Rondo and Pierce played abysmally, but Garnett was a beast the whole time and Pierce hit the biggest shot of the game right in LeBron’s face. Miami has proven unable to win in the playoffs if one of their two megastars struggles. LeBron and Wade have to come up huge if the Heat are to suffer another ignominious exit from the playoffs.