Before the series started, some fans believed it would be “easy” and some believed we would sweep the Miami Heat. Well, after Wednesday’s home loss, the team and fans know this Miami team won’t go down without a fight. After many years battling Miami, they have to be respected. In fact, they should have earned our respect.
Miami mentioned pregame that they wanted to shoot more threes, and they succeeded, hitting 53.5% (23/43) from deep. Boston didn’t adjust to Miami’s game plan and the Heat took advantage of finding the open shooter with the C’s being late on numerous closeouts.
The good news for Boston: they’ve been great at responding to adversity. Throughout the regular season, the Celtics lost two in a row just four times. The last occurrence was a few weeks ago when they dropped games to the Bucks and the Knicks; granted, that was when Boston had the number one seed locked up in early April.
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Winning 64 games over the season proves you can bounce back from losses. Although it may seem like the end of the world, it’s important to remember it’s just one loss in a best-of-seven series.
Although it didn’t seem like head coach Joe Mazzulla made many in-game adjustments, the importance is to figure it out before Game 3.
There aren’t going to be many games where Kristaps Porzingis will go 1-for-9 from the field and score just six points. Derrick White was another player who didn’t have it going offensively. White was held to just four points through the first three quarters before scoring nine in the final frame. Payton Pritchard has been a spark to the Celtics bench scoring this season and he didn’t attempt a shot in 20 minutes.
Even though it’s frustrating to lose — especially at home — it’s important to remember it’s a series and one loss shouldn’t make you throw out your entire game plan. Mazzulla talked about ‘adversity’ after the game:
“It’s unfortunate that losing a game is adversity. The nature of the playoffs is adverse itself,” he said. “To think you’re not going to have ups and downs through that run, you’re not being realistic.”
Jaylen Brown spoke about how Boston needs to respond on Saturday.
“Come back. Be the harder playing team next game and execute. Let everything else take care of itself. Gotta win the fight,” Brown said.
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A loss in the playoffs stings more than a regular-season loss, but the benefit of it being the playoffs is they play the same opponent and can make the necessary adjustments on a game-to-game basis.
“It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not an easy road to where both teams are trying to get to,” Jayson Tatum said. “Some tough, competitive basketball. We knew that they were going to respond and play better than the first game, and they did.”
Erik Spoelstra is the best if not the second-best coach in the NBA. His experience and ability to switch tactics on the fly will always have his team in the fight. Now it’s time for Mazzulla to show his ability as a coach to switch things up and find the perfect balance on both offense and defense.
Last year, it took Boston three straight losses to respond to Miami. This season, however, I believe it will be different. Without Jimmy Butler, the Celtics need to take advantage of the Heat being without their star player. Boston has more star power on the team this year and the way they responded throughout the season should give fans hope of it being different than last year.
Now with Miami taking home-court advantage, the Celtics must return back to Boston with at least one if not two wins.
