Game 1 was frustratingly familiar, but Celtics should still win this series
Jimmy Butler scored 35 points, the Celtics blew a double-digit lead, and they got outscored by 21 points in the pivotal third quarter.
The 2021-22 Celtics lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals to the Miami Heat, 118-107. Jimmy Butler scored 41 points, the Celtics blew a double-digit lead, and they got outscored by 25 points in the pivotal third quarter.
Celtics-Heat
Your 2022-23 Celtics, as you surely know despite glitchy YouTube TV’s best efforts to prevent some of us from watching the ugly final five minutes, lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals to the Heat, 123-116. Butler scored 35 points, the Celtics blew a double-digit lead, and they got outscored by 21 points in the pivotal third quarter.
So they held the relentless Butler to 6 fewer points than last year, and the third-quarter scoring margin while they were getting blown off the court was actually closer than what happened a year ago.
Hey, that almost counts as progress for this talented, maddening team.
Fine, so I’m using facetiousness to mask the frustration of not seeing this déjà vu of a letdown coming. I should have known better, but I was duped by the convincing way that Jayson Tatum and the rest of the Celtics closed out the Sixers series. I took the Games 6 and 7 victories as signs of maturity, when in reality that also was more or less a repeat of what they did against the Bucks in the second round last year.
The Celtics didn’t learn any hard lesson. There was no real progress. If anything, it reiterated their dangerous belief that they can turn their intensity on and off like a spigot — within a game and a series — and still prevail in the end.
That nonsense won’t cut it against the mentally and physically tough Heat. And yet the Celtics allowed history to repeat itself in Game 1, drop-kicking the opener away just as they did last year, while reminding us yet again that this team shuns prosperity and opportunity the way rookie coach Joe Mazzulla shuns logical substitution patterns.
These Celtics feature a better roster than a year ago, a worse coach (Mazzulla vs. Erik Spoelstra is such a mismatch that it’s a wonder Butler didn’t figure out a way to hunt it), and most of the same attributes and annoying habits as last year’s team.
Frustrations? We have a few. Foremost was the Celtics’ fluctuating defensive intensity, which has been an issue all season. To a player, the defense was ferocious in Game 7 against the Sixers. In Game 1 of this series, there were too many late closeouts (Jaylen Brown and Malcolm Brogdon were the most frequent culprits) and too little resistance in getting through screens. Defensive intensity is one aspect of the game that should always be in their control. It wavers too much, too often.
What else? Well, I almost feel bad for Payton Pritchard. Mazzulla put him in a no-win situation, checking him into the game early and playing him for 11 ineffective minutes after using him for just 24 minutes total through the first two rounds. Of course he’s not going to be ready … and why was he out there anyway?
Butler scored on him on a switch less than a minute after he entered. He might as well have been wearing a bull’s-eye on his jersey. It felt like Mazzulla wanted to throw a wrinkle at the Heat that Spoelstra hadn’t anticipated, but couldn’t come up with anything better.
Related to that, the continued burial of Grant Williams deep on the bench makes no sense. Mazzulla treats him as if he is 2011 Troy Murphy or something, and not a versatile, well-tested role player.
Williams can knock down the occasional 3-pointer; he shot at a higher percentage than Pritchard this year and hit 4 of 8 from deep in Game 2 against the Sixers, the last time he played significant minutes. He defends, which is what the Celtics needed more than anything in that third quarter, when Miami shot 17 of 26 from the field. And he plays with an edge and won’t shrivel against the Heat.
The Celtics have a major advantage in quality depth in this series, but Mazzulla doesn’t always know how to best deploy it.
As frustratingly familiar as Game 1 was, let’s be clear: I still believe the Celtics are winning this series. Miami isn’t going to shoot 54.6 from the field and 51.6 percent from three again. The Heat had four players hit three threes and two more hit two, including Butler, who had just one in the entire second-round series against the Knicks.
For all of the mistakes, the Celtics were down just 5 points with just under five minutes left. But they were done in by four turnovers (three by Tatum) and another poorly timed bout of sloppy play. I wrote this on the eve of the playoffs: It’s going to be grueling, a gauntlet, and there will be nights when they lose an ugly game and the fans’ faith with it. Wednesday was one of those nights, but faith should not be lost, even though a winnable game was.
You know what the Celtics need? History to repeat itself again in Game 2. Last season, the Celtics throttled the Heat in Game 2, 127-102, taking a 25-point lead into halftime and never looking back. Tatum led the way with an efficient 27 points (8 of 13 shooting). Oh, and Grant Williams was plus-37 and scored 19 of his own. Wish they still had that guy. (They do?)
The coach needs to play the right players. And the players have to play hard without losing focus. Do that, and they’ll win Game 2.
This doesn’t have to be so complicated.
I know. How many times have we said that the last two seasons?
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