Cardiac Celtics: I monitored my heart rate during the Game 1 win over the Heat

There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the Boston Celtics to go all the way and win Banner 18 this spring. After years of coming close but failing to finish the job, it feels like anything besides an NBA championship will be a letdown.

The pressure reaches farther than just the players. Many fans, like myself, are feeling the heat (no pun intended) as the playoffs get underway. What sort of torment are we all going to have to endure this summer if our guys come up short again?

I have no interest in finding out.

In the days leading up to the postseason opener, the Cs had to wait to find out who they’d actually be hosting on Sunday.

To make matters worse, the Cs were rewarded for their league-best record with a meeting with the reigning Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat, who ended Boston’s push for championship glory last spring.

If there is any team who can cause a first-round scare, it’s them.

As someone who gets irrationally nervous during playoff games, especially important ones like Game 1, I figured it would be good content to wear a heart monitor during the game.

The series opener turned out to be a pretty funny contest for me to roll out this experiment. Boston controlled things from the opening tip and won in wire-to-wire fashion.

Does that mean that I didn’t get a little sped up? Absolutely not.

At tip-off, I was riding at a crisp 74 beats per minute. For reference, my resting heart rate was at about 48 bpm earlier in the day (I’m a runner, which is why it’s so low).

Once the Celtics ripped off their 14-0 run to start the game, I relaxed a bit and dropped to 65 bpm. Minutes later, Miami had busted out the signature zone defense, cut the lead down to just five, and had raised me up to my game-high of 85 bpm.

Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images

Fortunately for the Cardiac Kid over here, Sam Hauser sank four straight threes to start the second quarter and I was able to relax again at 64 bpm.

As halftime approached, I got word that the legendary “Red Panda” would be performing during the break. Of course, that news got me a bit excited and I bounced up to 75 bpm.

The remainder of what turned out to be a laugher saw me spend most of my afternoon somewhere in the 60s. My game-low of 56 bpm came after the Celtics had ballooned the lead up to 32 points heading into the fourth quarter.

Photo by Maddie Schroeder/Getty Images

A few final moments of chaos kept me engaged in the final frame, with Bam Adebayo laying out Derrick White with a (most definitely illegal screen) and bumping me up to 64 bpm, and then Delon Wright drilling a ton of long-range bombs to cut the lead to 14 raised me to 67 bpm.

Unfortunately, as the Cs were up 16 points with like a minute and a half to play, the heart monitor had been retired by the time Jayson Tatum got laid out by Caleb Martin. If I had to guess, I didn’t increase much since JT bounced right back to his feet.

A key part of winning this series was always going to be not giving Miami any room to believe in themselves any more than they already do.

I’m certainly thankful that Boston took care of business and did it from the jump. Had they let Game 1 get out of control, we probably could’ve jumped up to triple digits.

Despite the incredible year that this team has had, it’s a bit bittersweet. The “championship or bust” mindset is a brutal one to carry around and the idea of a season like the one we all just witnessed being all for naught is terrifying.

I’ll be rolling with the heart monitor threads over on Twitter throughout the playoffs. So, if you thought this was funny, follow me over there @SamLaFranceNBA for the latest on my ticker.

I’ll probably do some similar recaps for other important playoff games, so stay tuned for that here as well.