Doc: Heat 'were aggressor all game'

Doc Rivers called Tuesday night's season opener in Miami a battle of wills and he thought the Heat cleared showed a stronger desire to make a statment during their 120-107 win over the Celtics in Miami. 

"I thought they were the aggressor all game," Rivers said. "I thought they got on the floor where they wanted to get on the floor. I thought they took us out of stuff they wanted to. You can see they've played together a little longer than us. I thought their continuity offensively was better. We made plays offensively but it wasn't good offense. It's funny, you shoot 52 percent and score 107 points and I didn't think we were very good offensively at all. I thought we had no continuity offensively at all and I think that hurt us on the other end.

"You can clearly see they're ahead of us in continuity, and they should be. They've played together. We knew that coming into the game. We have a lot of work to do."

The Celtics allowed the Heat to shoot 54 percent for the game and score 31 points in each of the first three quarters, building a 19-point fourth quarter lead Boston couldn't overcome. 

The Celtics couldn't get much offensively out of their low-post game as Kevin Garnett was held to nine points and 12 rebounds in 32 minutes.

"We have to do a better job of getting Kevin [involved]," Rivers said. "We should've had a low-post game tonight and we had nothing down low, and that's me. I look at the number 107 [points] and 52 percent [shooting] but I know, as a coach, our continuity was horrendous. We never got to the second and third option. It wasn't because of their defense. We didn't allow ourselves to. We broke it down a lot. And that's going to take time."

As for Ray Allen, whom Rivers gave a hug when Allen checked into the game with 2:45 left in the first quarter, Rivers said the Celtics could've done a better defensive job. 

"He was terrific," Rivers said of Allen's 19 points in 31 minutes. "He made shots. He went right all game and we let him. LeBron [James] made shots, and you can live with LeBron and [Dwyane] Wade making shots. First play Ray was on the floor, we leave him by himself. You would think we would know better."

For more, visit the Celtics team page at weei.com/celtics.