Robb: Kemba Walker's biggest issue in Game 1 went beyond his shooting woes

Kemba Walker was candidly honest in his postgame assessment of his play in the Celtics’ heartbreaking 117-114 Game 1 overtime loss to the Heat on Tuesday night.

“I’m just playing terrible to be honest,” Walker said after shooting 6-of-19 from the field. “Not much I can say but I have to be better. I have to do better for this team on both ends of the floor, have to make better decisions, just have to make shots overall.”

The shooting part of that comment is where most of the attention will be on Walker after Game 1 and it’s for good reason. Walker shot below 32 percent for the third consecutive contest in Game 1 and this time there wasn’t a box-and-1 zone to explain his struggles. He missed plenty of open looks, particularly from 3-point range (1-of-9) where he’s shooting a horrific 5-of-36 from deep over his past five games (13 percent).

“They’ve got great athletes out there,” Brad Stevens said of Walker’s scoring woes. “I think the guys that -- some of the guards are able to keep in front with their length and then Bam was switching a ton of pick-and-rolls all day. Bam’s a tremendous defender. So we’re going to have to figure out, again, better ways to attack.”

The Heat, just like the Raptors, clearly made a point of not letting Walker get into a scoring rhythm by throwing double teams at him at various points all night. Walker missed plenty of open shots though too, which is worrisome in itself since the All-Star seemed to lack some of the burst to get by defenders that he had earlier in his postseason. The Celtics need him to be better offensively to win this series and odds are he will be.

However, the poor shooting actually wasn’t the most damaging part of Walker’s game on Tuesday night. The Celtics were fully in a position to overcome another dud from Walker just like they did in Game 7 against the Raptors. However, they weren’t in position to overcome his subpar play on the defensive end of the floor.

The Heat had been picking on Walker defensively all night and that’s no surprise given his size limitations. He fights hard, usually makes smart choices and does his best to hold his own in tough spots, something he did on numerous occasions in this game.

However, with the game on the line at the end of regulation on Tuesday night, Walker made choices that brought back memories of a guy who left Boston in shame last postseason. For three critical moments, Walker lacked focus or good decision making and it opened the door for the Heat to eventually take the win.

“I have to do better for this team on both ends of the floor, have to make better decisions.”

Play 1
Celtics lead 105-100 with 1:09 left in regulation. 

Walker had just made a tough floater over Jae Crowder, giving the C’s a five-point lead with just over a minute remaining.

It was a big shot for a guy who had struggled all night amid some horrific crunch-time offense (more on that later) but Walker was feeling good. He thumped his chest as he ran down the floor after the make in a largely casual home run trot. He was far from the only Celtics to do this in this spot but he was the one who got burned for it. Meanwhile, watch how Erik Spoelstra is motioning to get the ball in quickly and catch the Celtics sleeping.