Wade, Heat get physical with Celtics

MIAMI – From the moment the Miami Heat gathered on a military base for training camp, they've had it pounded into them they would need to be tougher, nastier and fiercer to beat the Boston Celtics. Within the walls of the locker room, this has been the constant mantra from Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra: Boston, Boston, Boston. The Heat know people believed the Celtics had punked them over and over, that they were too timid to stand strong with the bullies.

This was on the Heat's minds when James Jones(notes) came crashing down on Paul Pierce's(notes) head after a pump fake sent Jones into the air. And this was on Dwyane Wade's(notes) mind when he had far more interest in plowing Pierce on a screen than fighting through it to get to a shooter. The Heat inspired Pierce to lose his cool for two technical fouls, costing him most of the fourth quarter and a chance to come back in the Celtics' 99-90 Game 1 loss.

Inside the losing locker room, in a quiet corner of American Airlines Arena, a livid Celtics coach Doc Rivers told Yahoo! Sports: "It wasn't physical – it was cheap-shot stuff."

Cheap shots? They were hard fouls – and Jones deserved a flagrant – but make no mistake: The Heat have used the Celtics as a model, and they've learned their lessons well. The tone of this series was delivered in a decisive way from the Miami Heat, a shrewd, calculated plan to make the Celtics lose their temper, lose composure and, ultimately, lose games.

This is the way the Celtics have beaten teams for a long, long time, and the Heat turned it around on them Sunday. There's such disdain between these two teams and their players, such an underlying thread of hatred. So much of Sunday was laying the baseline for what promises to be an old-school, nasty Eastern Conference semifinal series. This is playoff basketball. This is why everyone wanted these two teams, these stars, these egos and, yes, these stakes.

Beyond the physicality, the Heat liberated Wade and let him teach LeBron James(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) the most important lesson on beating the Celtics: Attack, attack, attack. Wade's 38 points were borne out of a fearlessness to take the ball to the rim, to manipulate Boston's breakdowns and turnovers for easy baskets.

Most of all, Wade shaped a tone that the Heat couldn't let past failures dictate present policy. He hadn't played the Celtics well in the regular season, struggling twice against Boston in the season's first three weeks without the benefit of a preseason. Wade's performance on Sunday was genius, but his most important play wouldn't be with a basket, but that barreling shot into Pierce's chest on the baseline with seven minutes left in the game.

Bad enough Pierce had gone after Jones a minute earlier, practically head-butting him as he pushed toward Jones after the foul. Bad enough Pierce lost his composure there, but he responded to Wade with what crew chief Dan Crawford later called, "a verbal taunt," inspiring ref Ed Malloy to give him a second technical foul. This one cost Paul an ejection with the Celtics trailing by 13 points, and the game likely gone anyway.

Pierce left the locker room without talking to reporters, but Rivers said: "I thought both [on Pierce] were flagrant fouls, but I don't think we should react to either one. I thought that James Jones … went right for the head. I thought Dwyane Wade … was just trying to run through Paul. I thought, as a whole, we were the retaliating team. We were never the 'hit first' team."

Privately, the Celtics believed the longer layoff after sweeping the New York Knicks hurt them, that they were far too careless with the ball and it cost them. Rajon Rondo(notes) was sluggish, hurting the Celtics with foul trouble and shoddy playmaking. "When you turn the ball over, it's a guaranteed basket," Rivers said. "It was a guaranteed basket when LeBron was by himself in Cleveland, and Wade was by himself in Miami. … We gifted 25 points."

Maybe most of all, the Celtics gifted the Heat a sense of belief. When it was over, James was relieved he could miss 11 of 19 shots, score 22 points, get six rebounds, five assists, and still beat the Boston Celtics. "I know I don't have to average 35 points against Boston like I have done in the past," James said. "Stats are good for me individually, but they did not get me anywhere. …

"Nights like this are what I thought about when I made the choice [to come to Miami]."

James forced far too much on a Boston defense that loaded up on him, but Wade's and Jones' shooting never let the Celtics back into the game. The Heat needed Game 1 badly, and they delivered it. They had to hold home court, had to be frontrunners in this series.

For the Celtics, it becomes riskier to insert Shaquille O'Neal(notes) into a series where they're behind, not ahead. The Boston coaches have concerns with what he can give them, how his sudden re-emergence could affect the bigger picture of the lineup. Physically, O'Neal could play Game 2, sources said, but it's a question of whether Rivers will allow it. O'Neal lobbied to play Game 1, but to no avail.

The Heat are expecting him back, and O'Neal promises to escalate the disdain between the two teams. Shaq has so many wounded relationships in Miami and never became particularly close with James in Cleveland.

Carlos Arroyo(notes) had been the Heat's starting point guard for the season's first three months, an important part of the franchise until they upgraded him with the Mike Bibby(notes) signing in February. After the Heat cut him, Arroyo ended up on the Boston roster and he's told his teammates in the locker room that the Heat did little this season without the Celtics in mind.

Asked in the Celtics' locker room after Game 1 whether he believed that Miami's over-the-top physical play in the fourth quarter was a mechanism for the Heat to answer the people who say they won't stand up to the Celtics, Arroyo said simply, "Yes, I think so. …I think so."

When it was over, Rivers stood in that quiet corner of the locker room, stood firm on what he called that "cheap-shot stuff." Nevertheless, he knew the most important factor of all was this: "We didn't respond well to it."

Dwyane Wade had the disposition to deliver the day for the Heat, and it was so, so important for them. Everyone waited for the Celtics to impose their nastiness, their physicality on the Heat, and something far different happened in Game 1. The Heat hit first, hit again and left the Celtics privately admitting to themselves: They beat us at our game, beat us the way that we used to beat everyone else.