MIAMI – Marcus Smart shouted from his back. He just grabbed a rebound from Bam Adebayo to finish off a basket and foul. In his head, Smart must have thought the play might lead to a Celtics comeback in the second half. Even after the rough start in the first half, they were close enough to dream.
After Smart made a free throw, the Celtics needed a layup to start the game. They never got it. Not on that play when they let Gabe Vincent slide into the bucket for an easy layup. It rarely happened in the third quarter where they melted. Never with any consistency during their 128-102 defeat, which dropped the Celtics to a 3-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference Finals.
“I think some of that defensive identity is lost,” said Joe Mazzola.
no kidding. The Celtics are accustomed to tearing up opponents’ plans and setting them on fire. They used to put out fires before they had a chance to catch fire. They reached the NBA Finals last season on the back of a defense that never cracked. They ultimately failed to win the championship because they didn’t have enough scoring solutions, but their defense hit hard until the end. This season, that superpower flashed through. Its light went out at the worst time of Sunday night, leaving players and coaches wondering how they could have gone down in such a crucial game.
Nnamdi played the game of his life on the big stage. New career high lead us to 3-0. pic.twitter.com/ig8AMBak0a
– Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) May 22, 2023
“I don’t even know where to start,” said Jaylen Brown. “Obvious disappointment. I feel like we left the fan base, the organization, let ourselves down, and it was a team thing. We could point fingers, but really, it was just embarrassing.”
“I think it’s just the execution, but we’re not in touch,” Mazzola added. “Normally at our best, we’re connected, we’re together, we’re physically on the defensive end. And we don’t have that now.”
No team has ever come back from 3-0 down in the series. If the Celtics fold at this point, they will have to wonder if they took the wrong approach the entire season. From the start of the campaign, Mazzola constantly advocated the need for a better attack, sometimes focusing on it at the expense of his team’s defence. His line-up choices were usually geared towards scoring and shooting outside. Where former coach Emi Odoka had almost always leaned towards size and physique, Mazzola prioritized skill. Even after Robert Williams became healthy enough to handle full minutes, Celtics player Derrick White started for most of the regular season. The league’s best defensive backs last season, Williams and Al Horford, played just 332 minutes together during the regular season despite Boston’s defense returning to stifling level whenever they shared the field. Grant Williams, whose intelligence and physicality helped the Celtics keep several stars in the playoffs last season, received DNP-CDs semi-regularly. Even Boston’s off-the-cuff moves, which have been widely praised, can be called into question. Malcolm Brogdon brought a level of maturity and consistency to the second unit offense, but the acquisition of another quality guard prompted Boston to rely more on smaller formations. It came with a trade off.
Is it fair to question all of that? Maybe not. But a loss like Sunday’s should convince the Celtics to reexamine everything. Perhaps it is no coincidence that their defense collapsed under Miami’s relentless pressure.
“I think we just have to be in touch more,” Jason Tatum said. “Five guys who are all on the same page, competing on the same level, talking, and just being there for each other. Every possession isn’t perfect. You’re going to run into wins. Mistakes happen. But we just have to do a better job of being there for each other, supporting each other, and to be a little more closely linked on defence.”
Including driving Vincent down the middle of the Celtics defense, the Heat shot six straight shots after Smart’s roaring play. Jimmy Butler sought out Derrick White and punished him to two straight switches. On first down, Butler roped White into the post before nailing a turnaround jumper as well as an error. In the second, Butler sprinted into the middle of the Celtics’ defense, grabbed three defenders and found Max Stross open for a three-pointer. After the moving screen violation, the Heat continued its drive with a Strus-oop alley to Bam Adebayo and Vincent’s 3-pointers in a row. Vincent’s second triple-double extended the Celtics’ deficit to 77-54. The entire trip took hardly more than three minutes. That’s how long it took Boston to lie down.
“We weren’t taking shots, and then we didn’t get back on defense, and we have to understand that our DNA, our core as a team is on defensive end,” Horford said. “It’s who we are, and it’s something we have to find if we want to come back and win this series.”
The Celtics struggled with turnovers. They couldn’t find the rhythm of the shooting outside. They had many other issues other than not being able to turn off the heat. But they used to be able to overcome offensive disadvantages by shutting down their opponents.
“I think last year — last year is over,” Brown said. “I don’t know. We couldn’t stop tonight.”
The Celtics shot just 29.2 percent on three points in the series. The Heat achieved 47.8 percent of that distance. The 3-point differential represents the entire scoring margin in the series (39 points) and then some. With the shooting gone, the Celtics had nothing else to fall back on to give themselves a chance. Their defense lost it in the third quarter of game one. He disappeared during the fourth quarter of Game 2. He didn’t even show up during Game 3.
“We definitely let running affect us early on, I feel, and we had some bad turnarounds early on that really hurt us,” said Horford. “In terms of defence, for whatever reason, we lost that, we didn’t do as good a job as we could have, so the challenge this year is we’ve been able to get his balance back and spot him. Our backs are against the wall now, so that’s something we have to do.”
The defensive slide appeared more early in the series, but was evident all season. The Celtics ranked second in defensive efficiency, but there are warning signs that they can’t quite come up with the same level of upset that propelled them to the Finals last season. It ranked 26th in opponent turnover percentage. They are tied for ninth in half-court defense, according to Synergy Sports. A cleanup of Glass’ database showed that their performance in that category fell further (to 16th) against the top 10 offenses in the league. Earlier in the playoffs, Trae Young and James Harden held Boston together in some key fourth quarter moments. The Celtics, after returning to the lineup last season, are still finding ways to reduce Philadelphia’s offense while avoiding elimination in their last two second-round games. That raised hope that the Boston defense would come back to stay, but the Heat ran free. Butler wasn’t permanent either. In Game 3, Caleb Martin, Gabe Vincent, and Duncan Robinson combined for 69 points on 25-for-36 shooting.
Should the Celtics play Robert Williams more? They attempted to start him and Horford together over the first two games of the series, but found little success in the pairing. Boston gave up an amazing 128 points per 100 possessions through Williams’ 61 minutes in the series. That’s a small sample size, but it’s a sign that Mazzola doesn’t have a clear answer at this point. The Celtics started big in the first game, then went small towards the end of the second half. They tried out Payton Pritchard in the opening series before switching to Grant Williams in Game Two. White was a worthy member of the NBA All-Defense Second Team but didn’t have answers for Butler. White looked shocked after the third game.
“We just have to get better,” White said. “Everyone, me personally. I have to be better. That’s why we were successful last year and we have to be better.”
No matter what Mazzola tried, Boston just couldn’t find the right mix to turn away the Heat’s relief. This is an indictment of the Celtics defense. It can be seen as an indictment of their entire mentality this season. They’ve focused so much on fixing their flaws that they’ve missed out on much of what made them great.
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(Top photo of Jimmy Butler in Miami and Jason Tatum in Boston: Megan Briggs/Getty Images)