The Celtics learned plenty of hard lessons last year against the Heat. If only they remembered them on Wednesday night.
"It was just almost like we were just playing a regular-season game. It's the Eastern Conference Finals."
COMMENTARY
Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics didn’t need to reinvent the wheel on Wednesday night.
Each new season charts its own unique path. There are twists and turns aplenty.
But trying to snuff out Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat is akin to traversing the Bourne Bridge on Memorial Day Weekend.
Try as you might, you know what the outcome is going to be.
And it’s going to be absolutely miserable.
The hard lessons that Boston learned during last spring’s seven-game rock fight against Miami held significant weight once again in this rematch.
The Celtics outlasted Miami then, sure. But it was a slog of a series dragged out by Boston’s own self-inflicted miscues.
To avoid a similar result (or worse, an exit just ahead of the NBA Finals), Boston just needed to follow the same script it eventually penned last May.
Match Miami’s hustle. Don’t fall into extended lulls. And above all else, take care of the ball.
For the first 24 minutes of Game 1 at TD Garden, Boston wasn’t giving Miami all that much.
Boston finished the first half with just five turnovers, tied for the third-fewest forced by the Heat in a half this postseason.
Marcus Smart was efficient as the Celtics’ playmaking maestro. He dished out 10 assists in the first half with just one giveaway. He only attempted one field goal.
Boston was selective with their shots, targeting the paint when Bam Adebayo needed a breather. Miami was outscored, 40-16, down low through two quarters.
Minutes into the third quarter, the Celtics built themselves some breathing room with an 11-point lead.
At long last, it felt like Boston cracked the code. Full speed ahead.
But rather than cross the bridge in record time, the Celtics ultimately found themselves sputtering in circles around the Bourne rotary — eventually heading back in the opposite direction.
How else can one describe a 123-116 loss on Causeway Street that followed the same trajectory as Boston’s disheartening Game 1 loss down in Miami last May?
Boston let that series opener back in 2022 slip away due to a lopsided third quarter, with the Heat putting the C’s away with a 39-14 scoring edge over those 12 minutes.
On Wednesday? Miami delivered a knockout blow by way of a 46-25 surge coming out of the break, turning a double-digit deficit into a lead the visitors did not relinquish.
“We were prepared, and then we let go of the rope,” Mazzulla said. “There’s two storylines here. It’s one, we were ready to play and we did a great job executing on both ends of the floor in the first half, and it’s about the consistency of they’re going to continue to play.
“So we have to be prepared for when we do outplay them that they’re going to respond and we have to respond.”
Boston did more than just let go of the rope as Miami started to sink shot after shot in the third. It tied itself to an anchor, gifting the Heat easy baskets as they negated numerous possessions with turnovers.
In total, the Celtics coughed up 10 turnovers in the second half, leading to an additional 18 points for the Heat. It was a familiar result for Boston, who averaged close to 19 turnovers per contest during their four regular-season meetings with Erik Spoelstra’s squad.
“We just got really antsy,” Marcus Smart said. “Everybody wanted to make a play, and my spacing — we let our spacing control the game, and it worked against us tonight in the second half. First half we was getting to our spots and we was getting the easy shots, the great shots. Second half we were all clustered up on each other, didn’t really give each other any room to maneuver and work.”
Boston’s recklessness with the basketball allowed the Heat to crawl back in Wednesday’s crematch. But it was the Celtics’ lack of response to Miami’s physicality and hustle that drew most of the team’s consternation up at the podium.
“It’s a choice. It’s a decision,” Jaylen Brown said of ramping up the team’s physicality. “Just come out and play with a different mentality. We came out too cool. It was just almost like we were just playing a regular-season game.
“It’s the Eastern Conference Finals. Like, come on. We’ve got to play with more intensity than we did today. We’ve just got to be better, including me.”
The Celtics have been in this spot plenty of times before. A Game 1 loss does not etch a team’s fate into stone.
If Boston is searching for a sliver of optimism, it lies in its unchanged game plan going into Game 2.
Mazzulla and his team know the steps necessary to get past this opponent.
It’s going to come down to Boston not beating itself over the next two weeks.
But time and time again, this team has shown that such a simple mandate is a task easier said than done.
“The only thing we need to adjust to is picking up our physicality and playing some damn defense,” Smart said. “That’s the only thing they switched.
“They didn’t change anything from the first half that they weren’t doing, they just upped their physicality and that’s it. There’s nothing tactical, X’s and O’s, it’s just come out and guard your yard.”
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