The Celtics lost and I’m not okay

This can’t happen again.

The Celtics can not lose to the Heat on a string of mathematically outlandish shooting performances again. They can not stand around like deer in a boxing ring made out of headlights again as their opponents rain threes on their bewildered heads. They can not look confused or defeated when Miami brings their A-game when the Celtics were bracing for a chill C+.

And it’s not going to happen again, but we all got a glimpse of what it could look like if it did on Wednesday night. Armed with their recently-outlawed bioweapon known as M.I.S.S. (Miami Induced Shell Shock), the Heat proceeded to make every three in human history as the Celtics MISSed (see what I did there) every opportunity to take control of the game.

It’s not like the Celtics got blown out, and they had lots of chances to snag that game from the inevitably encroaching jaws of defeat. Jaylen Brown scored 11-straight points to close out the half, but the Celtics failed to follow it up with a strong start to the third. Derrick White brought a lightning-strike six points to cut the lead to five in the fourth quarter, but the Heat had the answer.

Each time Boston tried to finally turn the tide, Miami hit a three. It was a brutal spectator experience, made even worse by the fact that I’m actually in Germany right now and stayed up until 3:45 AM to watch the game. I’ve endured the Heat’s barrages of black magic before, but doing it with the throes of physical exhaustion is a whole new animal.

In no way did the Celtics deserve to win or had the game stolen, as they certainly didn’t and it certainly wasn’t. Boston was outworked, outplayed, and most of all outshot to a degree that a win would have felt disingenuous. I still would have accepted a disingenuous win, but Miami earned it.

But there’s a certain cruelty to how they earned it, hearkening back to every insufferable tendency that sank the Celtics last year and doing so in a way that defies logical understanding. Boston could have weathered a storm of threes, but Miami left the rain clouds at home and brought an avalanche to TD Garden.

Avalanches are the deadly cousins of rainstorms. Someone at the wrong place at the wrong time could get into trouble in the rain, but avalanches have an uncontrollable license to kill whenever they decide to appear. And while rain clouds give some warning to potential victims, an avalanche can happen in the blink of an eye.

The Heat didn’t just make a bunch of threes Wednesday night to beat the Celtics; they threw the entire force of their organization behind making a bunch of threes. Never before have I seen a team so maniacally committed to finding and launching threes, nor did it seem like the Celtics ever had either. Per NBA tracking, most of these shots were wide open (closest defender 6+ feet away) or only lightly contested. Shooting nearly 53.5 percent from deep is a preposterous clip, but none of them were crazy shots.

If anything, the Heat played Celtics basketball. Everyone on the roster was clearly under instructions to fire at will, and everyone from Jaime Jacquez Jr. to Haywood Highsmith was locked and loaded to produce as many points as possible from beyond the arc. These guys are below average shooters, but found an endless well of confidence in the face of a confused Celtics team.

Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The Celtics rightly didn’t offer too much resistance, since letting a shaky shooter launch triples isn’t always the worst strategy defensively. But that mindset only holds water with guys that would rather drive than shoot, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo or Ja Morant. They are so unstoppable downhill that leaving them open to shoot threes is usually the only option, and they’re the ones giving up the advantage if they take the jump shot instead of driving.

But the Heat do not have Giannis Antetokounmpo or Ja Morant. They have Nikola Jovic and Delon Wright, guys who were in and out of NBA rotations all year and aren’t polished scorers at any level. For them, if Head Coach Erik Spoelstra said “take a three whenever you have the chance,” they aren’t giving up any real advantages by doing so.

The Heat hit a ton of threes and won the game, that’s the truth of the matter. But we’re not going to sit here and play the victim since I’m fresh out of victim juice after last year, so instead I’ll end with a personal apology mixed with a lesson.

I underestimated these guys… again. I wrote not one, not two, but three articles explaining how the Heat are not to be feared nor are they even really our rivals. For all of that, I would like to issue a formal apology.

I naively hoped that this would be easy, that this Celtics team was different and would be able to dispatch of this buffoonery without the same strife and anguish of seasons past. I naively believed that the universe-bending lightning of last season couldn’t strike twice. But of course it wasn’t going to be easy, since this hydra of a team won’t die no matter how many heads you cut off.

So in an official CelticsBlog press release, I declare the Miami Heat an official rival of the Boston Celtics. Filled with hatred for the life decisions that resulted in my total dejection and despair at the rich hour of four in the morning, I had no choice but to take this step. I’m not happy about throwing my highly-sophisticated historical explanation out the window, but I’m so sick of these guys that I had to.

The good news? Now that the Heat are an official, Oliver Fox Approved™ Rival, the Celtics can unleash their full fury to sink this ship once and for all without worrying about historical justification. They should be closing out on threes like these guys are their mortal enemies, because—as of now—they are.