I am curious what you are referring to. We can agree to disagree about the end of game three because regardless of where you come down on the defense, Lowry made a brilliant pass across the court and OG hit the shot. What happened with composure there?
As for today, Boston overcame a four point deficit with 4:24 left in the game, against probably the best defense they saw all season, all while holding Toronto scoreless.
In OT1, the Celtics tied the game on Brown's FTs while holding Toronto scoreless for the last 92 seconds to force OT2.
I mean, they did lots of things wrong but so too did Toronto.
It's easy to play great defense when the offense becomes one guy dribbling into the teeth of it with nobody else moving and no real plan.
After they tied it tonight in Q4, they had these possessions in the last two minutes with zero ball movement:
Kemba misses a forced jumper (hero ball)
Tatum throws it to nobody after getting lost on the dribble (hero ball)
Kemba forces a layup (hero ball)
2nd OT, up 4, they go:
Jaylen one man fast break to nowhere, stripped (hero ball)
Tatum 2018 style long-2 with a hand in his face, missed (hero ball)
Jaylen backing down Lowry in the post for god knows why, again stripped (hero ball)
Theis alleyoop (ball movement!)
Marcus three (ball movement!)
Theis alleyoop (ball movement!)
Tatum TO leading to the and-1 (hero ball), after which it is a two possession game until the final desperation heave.
At least in game 3 they got shots up on their late possessions but still gave away their chance to make it a two possession game with Tatum forcing a contested long 2.
Where are the good possessions consistently coming from late in close games? They nearly pissed away game 2 also.The thing Toronto has done wrong have been more like missing shots because they are smaller than our players. Our wrong things have been forgetting you have teammates, having no awareness of the game situation, and thinking the goal of basketball is to see who can stay the most still on offense.
I guess the good news is when they have made adjustments and pressed hard all game, they have won blowouts. But they have to play two other great teams to win the title, and the games will be close more often than not. They haven't earned anybody's trust in these situations.