With last night’s game tied at 98 with 12 seconds left, the Boston Celtics had the basketball ready to inbound it on the side.  Instead of running a set play, the Celtics decided to get the ball into Paul Pierce’s hands and let him work out of an ISO set.  It worked out well for the Celtics, but I feel like the Heat made a few key errors that helped the Celtics out.  Here is the video in real time, count the mistakes:

How many mistakes did you guys count?  By my count, I had three.  Let’s go over them:

1) Not Taking The Foul To Give

Yes, the Heat had a foul to give, and while I agree that you shouldn’t take it 100% of the time, this was a situation where I thought the Heat should have used their foul to give.  Why?  Well, Paul Pierce was dribbling out the clock, and it gave the Heat a perfect opportunity to take the foul.  Pierce gets the ball with 9 seconds left, and he doesn’t start attacking with 3 seconds left.  That is 6 seconds of him just standing there dribbling out the clock, plenty of time to take the foul.

2) Letting Pierce Get To His Spot

In an interview after the game, Paul Pierce told the sideline reporter that he was able to get to his sweet spot.  The thing is, everyone who watches basketball knows this.  Pierce has been hitting late jumpers from that spot for years, and it is kind of amazing that the Heat didn’t at least try to keep him from getting to that spot.  Pierce was able to take 2 attack dribbles and pull up for the game winning jumper.

3) Not Sending A Double

If you rewatch the final play, the Celtics actually make a mistake in those final seconds.  Kevin Garnett sets a backscreen for Ray Allen.  Garnett is now the Celtics closest to the basketball, allowing Haslem to run at Pierce if he wanted to.  He decided not to, and Pierce was able to take the jumper.  Pierce waited so long to attack that if Haslem would have decided to send a double-team, he would not have had time make the pass, and the Heat could have forced him into a tough jumper.