Tired legs in the fourth elimination game in a row. I don’t agree with those that think tonight was a “choke”. They lost Tatum and ran out of gas. The real issue is getting taken to 6 by Atlanta, 7 by Philly, and losing the first three games to this Miami team. They should have been so much better than that but they just weren’t. Not sure how to fix it but this group just struggles when it’s close and late and it bit them in the ass too many times.
I think coming back from 0-3 to get to G7 is evidence of resilience. What they need is maturity and toughness and a ruthless streak to crush an opponent. And as advised for months they need a real coach.
It’s bizarre because this felt like watching a Pitino/Obie era Celtics squad.
Disagree. The C's left shooters wide open all night on simple defensive breakdowns. The Heat didn't make those kinds of mistakes which is why so many of the Celtics threes were terrible Jaylen step-ins or other garbage early shot clock looks.
In fairness, the Celtics took at least 70 3PA combined in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history in 2016.
Agreed. And full credit to the Heat for making those shots. Just the mentally tougher team tonight.
What's the "what if" in your opinion? What if Tatum didn't roll his ankle or something else?
I respect that you think these guys will be responding to this night 11 months from now.
They showed the clip of Jimmy saying that same thing 12 months ago, that he'd come back and prepare enough to win it when he's in this situation next time.
If we don’t, can they fire him next year?
I dunno. I mean MIA left shooters wide open too - Cs made a few of them (GW in the corner; JT off an OReb; White after a miscommunication) but MIA hit a lot of shots that were contested (i'll leave it others to determine which team had better contests).
Agreed. This team is 8-2 in elimination games over the last two postseasons. Whatever their problem is, it's absolutely not resilience, or heart, or whatever it takes to get up off the mat and keep fighting when the chips are down.
Next season the Celtics can have a guy who has a lot of NBA experience like, say Budenholzer or a guy who inherited a job by complete surprise right at the start of the year as well as a thinned coaching staff, then guided this team back to within one game of the finals.
This team had the same issues under Ime and Brad. Firing the coach will not fix a lot of the issues that this team runs into when the 3's aren't falling.
I never remembering thinking that Brad or Ime looked overmatched in the playoffs. It's not just the late game collapses. There has been a lot to criticize with Mazz this season and I don't remember many people feeling that way with either of the last two coaches...
You could also attribute that to them being a far more talented team who couldn't get their butts in gear until they were pushed against the wall.
Brad and Ime had a full staff of assistants; Mazzulla did not. And Ime looked overmatched the first half of last season. Brad was outcoached by Spoelstra in the bubble loss to the Heat.
People here acting like Brad didn't lose to Miami in 6 instead of 7, while having a best player with working ankles (sorry, Gordo, you were not the best).....and even WORSE 4th Q collapses.
Really? A 48-win Celtic’s team’s failure to win an ECF against a 44-win Heat -in the bubble- is just as bad as being the first team to ever lose to a number 8 seed in a conference finals? Come on. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that team was led by two gimpy Veterans and a 21-year old Tatum. Are you really going to suggest that people expected as much of them as this year’s team?
They weren’t able to slow down Caleb Martin once this series. Not once.
I think this is one you can put squarely on the coach. Mazzula seems to have a very large and spacious dog house. It's well and good to try and send a message, but I think the risk is you can completely sap a player's confidence. Grant had a massive regression this year, to me, that's on Joe. It happened on his watch and when it came time that they needed him his playing time had been sporadic he was massively inconsistent, ranging from super helpful old Grant to net negative Grant. He was a 30 mpg player against this same Heat team last year.
What did Ime accomplish? His team was 4 games under 0.500 over last season's halfway point and damn near blew last year's Miami series in which Ime was outcoached by Spoelstra. Then Ime was badly outcoached by Steve Kerr in the Finals.
Totally fair, and this team would been steamrolled by Denver in the next round. But with an off-season to fully prepare, round out CJM’s staff with a real defensive coach and possibly upgrade a bench slot or two? Yeah, this is still a championship level team.
Yeah I sent this text out moments after the final whistle when I was still very emo about it…and it’s a bit simplistic but I still stand by it this morning -
I think it mainly has to do with the Ime squad played actual defense, whereas the JM squad would play good defense in spurts and then come out in the most important games of the year and have two defenders follow the screener leaving white-hot shooters like Martin wide open to can threes at will. I think the team stats that folks kept pointing to that showed the C's being a top-5 defense were an absolute mirage.
Exactly, the injury excuse is not going to fly. Miami had to deal with injuries this series as well. The Celtics, aside from Brogdon, were healthy in the first 3 games. They had a late lead in Game 2 that they blew. Miami dominated 2nd half of Game 1 and all of Game 3.
Yup. I think injuries are a very valid excuse for last nights loss - which is why of the 3 home losses it is the least frustrating one - but NOT a valid excuse for the series loss.
This is really it. They underachieved this entire playoff season, not just in the conference finals. I'm not sure I can remember another team this talented that just could not close games. It happened constantly in the regular season and I made excuses and handwaved it off as a fluke, but it didn't improve at all in the playoffs and it cost them another shot at a championship. Atlanta should have been polished off in 5, Philly in 5 or 6, and they had double digit leads in the second half of both Games 1 and 2 against Miami and couldn't close either of them. The 0-3 comeback was admirable, but they put themselves in a position where a Game 7 could be decided by uncontrollable factors like injury luck, officiating, shooting variance, etc. and it bit them square in the ass. Not sure how you fix it but this is a major problem for this team and it hasn't improved one bit in the last few seasons. It's almost shocking how little it has improved.
The big thing to me going forward, bigger than the head coach or Jaylen Brown, is if this is a part of the Celtics culture now (the not closing games, losing focus, letting series go way long due to those things). The lesson from losing in the Finals to GSW was "we ran out of gas/had injures after two brutal series to get here". The same thing just happened in Game 7 of the ECF and Mazzulla is like "remember this feeling". ??? They had the same feeling after game 6 last season.
To arrive at the answer moving forward let's step back and review the past along with how NBA coaching functions.
The fear is that Mazzulla is way over his head, which is a valid concern for a guy with his skimpy resume. Press conferences aren’t particularly important but they do give fans their only chance to get a sense of how a coach interacts. So how does he come off? Over his head. Like a guy who could benefit from media relations advice from your average, socially skilled teenager. He also comes off as uptight and rigid, something that kinda fits considering how inflexible he has been with making adjustments in the playoffs and during games, and how tight his team has played throughout the playoffs.
Scal and the beat writers go on all the time how Mazzulla is a completely different person from what he portrays in those press conferences.
That, and, being down 6 or 7 late in Q3, Butler drove the baseline, stepped out of bounds and it wasn't called. He then found Martin for a wide open 3. Celts responded with a 3, but that 3 would have made it a 3 or 4 point deficit and a lot more momentum.
Unfortunately the issue is that they put themselves in backs-against-the-wall situations too often because of their lackadaisical approach when the chips *aren’t* down. Eventually that catches up to you, as it did this season.
