BOSTON — The Boston Celtics are the worst great basketball team these eyes have ever seen.
Game 7 on their home floor with a chance to make history and advance to their second straight NBA Finals, and they lay an absolute egg. All the momentum gained from winning three straight, and riding high after a Derrick White tip-in saved their season, gone with the wind in a 103-84 defeat.
Yes, Jayson Tatum rolling his ankle on the first possession of the game hurt.
“He just tried to play through it the best he could,” said head coach Joe Mazzulla.
But it’s no excuse. Boston had to find a way to win this game whether Tatum was at his best or not.
Instead, they reverted back to the Game 1, 2 and 3 Celtics from this Eastern Conference Finals showdown. Poor ball movement and an inability to effectively beat a zone, 3-point reliant offense, lackadaisical defense after missed shots, untimely turnovers … all of it.
While Miami certainly deserves a ton of credit, the Celtics did this to themselves. And now they have an entire offseason to think about it.
“The Heat played better than we did and that’s it,” said Mazzulla. “Credit to them. We didn’t play well tonight.
“I thought the first quarter and a half or so we continued to fight defensively even though shots weren’t falling, but we just couldn’t score.”
As great as the Celtics’ comeback was this series, the writing was on the wall all along. They never should have been in that position to begin with.
Boston was simply too inconsistent, too mentally soft, and had too many unshakable habits at this point in the season to pull off the miracle. Winning four games in a row is a tall task for any team, even the great ones. Boston lost this series when they fell down 3-0.
OK, the fashion in which they went down was still a bit shocking. But we’ve seen this movie before, and at TD Garden, too.
The fact of the matter is this Heat team never lost hope; Conference Finals MVP Jimmy Butler never lost hope. Boston felt like they had them on the ropes, but that was never the case.
Erik Spoelstra coached circles around 34-year-old rookie Joe Mazzulla, which was no surprise. Despite his sluggish stretch over the past few games, Butler was in fact the best superstar on the floor when it mattered most — and perhaps more importantly, Caleb Martin was the best player on the floor.
Celtics fans will say, ‘How can you let Caleb Martin beat you?’. But in reality, Caleb Martin beat the Celtics.
This was his coming out party, and he’s going to get PAID when the time comes. He wasn’t just hitting open jumpers like so many great role players do. He was creating his own shot off the dribble, pulling up from beyond the arc and around the key with his mid range game, rebounding with a purpose and even getting to the rim and finishing in traffic.
Tip your hat.
On the other side, White played his tail off and was really the only Celtic player to attack the rim with regularity. A banged up Tatum didn’t have it, and Jaylen Brown (8-for-23 from the field, 8 turnovers) was simply atrocious in a team-high 43 minutes; no way around it. For as talented as Brown is, his low IQ and inability to take care of the basketball is staggering.
“Just a terrible game when my team needed me most,” said Brown.
As for the offense as a whole, all year long the Celtics lived and died by the 3-ball. When it was falling, everything else worked, too. When it wasn’t, they were always in a position to lose ball games.
Despite that harsh reality, Mazzulla doubled down on his team’s offensive approach following the season ending loss.
“No,” he said when asked if he felt his team was too reliant on the three.
Boston escaped Game 6 despite shooting 7-for-35 from deep, but a 9-for-42 clip two nights later in Game 7 led to their downfall. They weren’t shooting with confidence and many of the threes they did take were simply a forced effort to get the crowd going and climb out of the hole on one possession.
For whatever reason, Boston played tight and tentative in the biggest game of the year, and that was obvious even to their own players.
“I thought we were tight; I thought we played tight and when you play that way it makes you hesitant on both ends of the ball,” said Malcolm Brogdon, who suited up despite his injury but only managed seven non-impactful minutes.
“I thought Miami played loose and executed on the defensive end and offensively they were poised. They weren’t rushed.”
“Words can’t even explain,” added Marcus Smart. “It’s tough.”
The Celtics were the more talented team, an actuality that rang true in arguably every game they played this season. But they are living proof that talent doesn’t always win out.
Now, this team will go down as one of the most disappointing great basketball teams ever.