BOSTON – “This Celtics team feels like a bunch tired of fake liking each other.”
that was dominant story making the innings after the Boston Celtics dropped Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami Heat, trailing 3-0. A team that has struggled with consistency throughout the postseason has finally met its match.
That was on Tuesday, May 23rd. On Thursday, May 25, the Celtics won Game 5, bringing the series to 3-2, and coming close to NBA history.
Between Games 3 and 4, Jaylen Brown revealed that the Celtics had a team meeting, and despite the rumble of Boston’s fall, they’re closer than ever.
After Game 5, Brown said, “When adversity strikes, you can see what a team really is made of. It couldn’t get any worse than losing 3-0. But we didn’t look around. We didn’t go in separate directions. We stayed together.”
Dominating the Heat in Game 5, the Celtics pulled off a straight victory with four players — Jayson Tatum, Brown, Derrick White, and Marcus Smart — all finishing with more than 20 points.
While the Heat shot 51.3% from the field as a team, the Celtics honed Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, holding the former with just 10 field goal attempts and forcing six turnovers against the latter.
It was a completely cohesive effort from a Celtics team that consistently fails to deliver this kind of performance. Now more than ever, they depend on their synergy.
“One of our assistants put it in great perspective. The season lasted nine months, and we had a bad week,” said Joe Mazzola, head coach of the season. “Sometimes you have a bad week at work. We obviously didn’t pick the best time to have a bad week, but we did, and we’re together and fighting like hell to keep him alive. The guys really come together.”
Being down 3-0 was clearly not Boston’s goal. Every team that plays a sport wants to win every game it plays. But this is not a fact.
The fact is that the Celts have locked themselves in a corner, and in order to get out of it, they cannot think about the past. Their chemistry needs to drive them forward.
And after losing Game 3, they had no intention of going out sad.
“Just to be together in moments of adversity,” Brown said. “Staying on the same page and sticking to it. Doubling down on the things we need to do better [and] Holding each other accountable was key. I think as soon as we went out together, we all looked each other in the eye and said like, “Hey, we’re not going out like that.”
The Boston core has been together for about six years since Tatum’s rookie season. There was clearly a break in the middle when Al Horford left, but Smart, Brown and Tatum were the constants.
Tournament-caliber cores have very short windows. LeBron James Heat only got four years. Kevin Durant drove Oklahoma City Thunder They were only seriously competing for titles for five. the Golden State Warriors It is the anomaly, not the norm.
The Celtics had reached the Eastern Conference Finals four times in six years and were a consistent force in the Summit East throughout Tatum’s career. Over the past two seasons, it has looked as if they are ready to reach their peak, and Tatum can feel that in the locker room.
Yet, in a historically impossible hole, that’s what they’re counting on.
themselves.
“You can see the true character of a person, or a team, when things aren’t going so well,” said Tatum. “And our ability to work together and figure things out when it doesn’t necessarily feel right for us is unlike any team I’ve been on this year and last year.”
And if the Celtics really “falsely like” each other, they should all be given Academy Awards for their starring roles in the “post-Game 5 Locker Room Tournament Rock-Paper-Scissors. “
From Brown’s wide grin to Horford’s excitement to White’s cheery dance to Smart’s fanfare, the Celtics really are great actors when they pretend they like each other…
“I’m off Twitter so I don’t know what they said, what you guys said,” Tatum said when asked about the media accounts. “So, I don’t know how to answer that. Just trying to keep a cool head. Good or bad. Just trying to focus on the task at hand. The next game. And it’s kind of simple that way.”
Instead of reading the headlines, the Celtics focus. They have now won 2 straight games and have a decisive Game 6 ahead of them in Miami.
All or nothing. Win or go home. chance in history.
But no matter how the Celtics finish, they do it together.
“Their backs are against the wall. It builds connection and it builds opportunity,” Mazzola said. I’ve said it all year, the guys in that locker room, they always stick together. When our backs are against the wall, we just have to keep it going.”