BOSTON — When the Boston Celtics traded for Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, the plan was for them to put the team over the top.

Holiday came in as a former NBA champion with the Bucks, and his defense was going to be a huge plus while bringing some consistency on offense. Porzingis was the more intriguing option in that he was bound to be a matchup nightmare for opponents, which proved true during the regular season.

So as the Celtics blew out the Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, the pieces looked like they fit perfectly. Porzingis showed off why the Celtics traded for him; Holiday didn’t have the greatest stats, but he was a factor defensively.

But then the Celtics were stunned in a 111-101 Game 2 loss – a brutal wake-up call for not just the team, but the new acquisitions. The 3-pointers were undoubtedly a factor for the Heat (franchise record for 3s made in a playoff game, shooting 23 of 43), but the Celtics needed more from their talented roster.

“I think they hit a lot of 3s,” Holiday said of the loss. “They took a lot, they hit a lot, and that kind of fueled them. I think we played hard and played tough. I think we fought. I think for myself personally, I could have crashed the offensive glass a little bit more. But just going to go back and watch the game and adjust.”

Porzingis had perhaps his worst game of the season, putting up just six points on 1-for-9 shooting, to go eight rebounds and four assists. He was a minus-32 in his 30 minutes of what ended up being a 10-point loss. It was clear the physicality bothered him as the Heat made it difficult for him to even get the ball when he had a mismatch. And when he did have the ball, he wasn’t able to make an impact.

Holiday wasn’t much better, as he finished with nine points, three rebounds and two assists. For a Celtics team that needed to be efficient while the Heat kept knocking down 3s, Holiday’s 4-for-12 showing wasn’t up to par. His offense wasn’t great in Game 1, either.

So the Celtics will go back to the drawing board. They’ll need to make adjustments – especially to make life easier for Porzingis. How the big man would look in the playoffs was a major question mark, as he didn’t bring in a wealth of postseason experience like his teammates. While Porzingis impressed in Game 1, the Game 2 showing wasn’t up to the big man’s standards. But those are the necessary adjustments over a playoff series as the Celtics shift their attention to Game 3.

“They’re physical,” Jaylen Brown said. “They make it tough and stuff like that. They want to push catches out, especially if the whistle’s in their favor, they pride themselves on trying to make everything tough. So we just gotta fight for our spacing. Gotta be just as physical and look forward to it. Own our space, catch the ball with physicality, don’t look for the ref to make the call, and embrace it.”

JIMMY BUTLER’S right knee is still mending from the MCL sprain he sustained in the Miami Heat’s play-in opener. Jimmy Butler’s fingers? Still fully at play on his phone’s keyboard.

So, yes, even as the Heat’s leading man remains sidelined from this best-of-seven opening-round playoff series against Boston that resumes Saturday in Miami, he nonetheless has made an imprint.

No sooner did the Heat even the series with Tuesday night’s 111-101 victory at TD Garden than Butler took to his social media with a blast from the past, dredging up a quote from last season’s Eastern Conference finals from Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, when Brown warned, “Don’t let us get one.”

That was in reference to the Celtics falling behind 3-0 in that series. The Celtics did, indeed, get the next one, and the next one, and the next one, to tie the best-of-seven series 3-3, before Butler and the Heat took Game 7 in Boston to head to the NBA Finals.

So in the immediate wake of Wednesday night’s victory, having skipped the trip to concentrate on his knee rehab, Butler (or his social-media team) superimposed his own face on an Instagram post of Brown and Brown’s quote.

To that, Butler added a comment of, “feeling cute, might delete later. sikeeeee I ain’t deleting.”

Butler is expected to be back on the Heat bench Saturday at Kaseya Center, as he was when sidelined from last Friday’s play-in victory over the Chicago Bulls, but is expected to remain sidelined as he undergoes further knee treatment.

THE HEAT, with the series at 1-1, have the Celtics’ complete attention, certainly more than that of a typical No. 8 seed against the No. 1 seed.

“I mean, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “There’s a lot of history between these two franchises, especially recently. Regardless of seeding or who’s in and who’s out.

“It’s the playoffs. And especially with that team, it’s never going to go how people expect it to go. That’s the beauty of being in the playoffs and playing at the highest level, it’s part of it.”

What appeared was going to be easy, particularly after the Celtics’ 114-94 victory Sunday in Game 1, now no longer has such a feel, with the Heat’s Game 2 effort including limiting Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis to 1-of-9 shooting.

“I think we’ve got to be more creative,” Tatum said. “The playoffs are about making adjustments game to game, and they did that. They’re not just going to let us catch the ball, they’re not just going to let us throw it to KP easy.

“They’re supposed to try to mess things a little up, and make it a little bit tougher. So it’s our job to react in real time, as well as make our adjustments going from game to game.”

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