This is well said. Last night's game was completely one-sided. But even with the Celtics being able to score at will, Miami was able to keep things close for a while on the backs of a bunch of tough, contested makes. That shit is going to happen sometimes. You do everything right, your opponent is inferior, yet ball luck wins out.Wrt losing a few close games to good teams: you can lose 43% of your playoff games to good teams and still win the Finals. (The 2008 Celtics lost 39% of their playoff games.)
NBA basketball has significant variance, and the sport is set up to let some of that even out on the biggest stage. The Celtics are well set up for exactly that environment.
And some nights are just not your night, effort/intensity/whatever.
But watching the Cs run through their offense and defense is a joy, even when some guys are out here and there. They have a plan A, plan B, and plan C. Zone isn't sinking them. Bad reffing, nope? They seem to know that they're the better team pretty much every night. They're trusting the process, making their reads, etc. Everyone is bought in.