In the East Finals rematch, Tatum scores 26 points as the Celtics humiliate the Heat, 143-110.

Miami (AP) — Coach Joe Mazzulla of Boston is an avid moviegoer, and last season, he made headlines when he admitted to watching “The Town” multiple times a week. He also recently saw “A Bronx Tale,” a 1993 crime drama, which he also gave two thumbs up.

“Nobody cares” is one of the movie’s most important phrases.

That was exactly how he felt about the Heat blowing him out.

Miami suffered its fifth straight loss on Thursday night as the Celtics defeated the struggling Heat 143-110 thanks to 22 3-pointers hit by Jayson Tatum, who finished with 26 points, and Kristaps Porzingis, who had 19 before spraining his left ankle.

Although this game was excellent, Mazzulla stated that if we don’t learn the necessary lessons and apply them to the next one, it won’t matter much in the big picture. We’ll enjoy it up until we board the aircraft, at which point we’ll go on to the next one.

There was enough to be happy about. In 172 games between the two teams, including playoff games, Boston had never scored as many points against Miami as it did in this game, and the 33-point margin of victory was the biggest margin of victory ever for Boston over Miami. The Celtics outrebounded the opposition 47–31 and shot 64%.

The NBA-leading Celtics were led by Jaylen Brown with 18 points, Jrue Holiday with 17, and Derrick White with 15. They are 2-0 this season and have improved to 35-10 against.

We basically took what we learned from last year and applied it this year,” Tatum remarked.

Miami’s Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro each scored 19 points, while Jimmy Butler contributed 17. The Heat are on their longest losing streak since March 2021, when they lost six straight games.

“It seemed like there was a lot of miscommunication, defensive errors, and a lot of things that happened during the game that we didn’t fix and had to pay for,” Adebayo stated.

FanDuel Sportsbook had the Heat as 8 1/2-point underdogs at the start of the contest. They hadn’t been this much of an underdog in their home arena since Golden State was favored by 9 1/2 points on February 27, 2019, when Miami won 126-125.

That was not how this one ended for Miami. Not even near.

Boston did not take long to demonstrate why the oddsmakers took their actions. The first quarter saw the Celtics go up 40–25 after an 18–7 run that lasted three minutes. Boston was off and running. At the half, Boston led 77-64 and the Celtics were in complete control.

And Miami’s situation simply grew worse.

With one minute remaining in the third quarter, Boston led 113-90 going into the fourth quarter, while the Heat entered the game having surrendered an average of 110.5 points thus far this season. It was only the fourth time in Heat history that a Miami team gave up that many points in the first 36 minutes of a game, even including the playoffs.

Three of Miami’s last five games have seen the team trail by at least 24 points: 37 against Toronto on January 17, 24 against Orlando on Sunday, and 34 against Boston on Thursday. And the three most lopsided losses this Heat season resulted from those three games.

We faced a very strong offensive club that has been playing like this for several months, which is what went wrong, according to Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. It was a humble evening. That’s for certain. Tonight, they made us seem foolish.”