They are two words that send a lot of Celtics fans into Liz Lemon-level eye rolls.
Heat Culture.
It’s not really that Boston faithful don’t believe in the culture built in Miami, it’s just that the Heat beat everyone over the head with it.
I, personally, believe in Heat Culture, capitalized because it’s now its own living, breathing entity. I do believe that Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra have teamed up to build a mentality and expectation of hard work and personal responsibility that leads to success. I believe players who appear to have had marginal ability somewhere else can join the Heat, buy into that culture, and find a new level to their games.
I think it’s why they were so good in the bubble. I think it’s why guys like Max Strus and Gabe Vincent can thrive and help them win. And I think it’s why Jimmy Butler can take his game to an entirely new level, higher than he did in past stops, even if emotions boil over every so often.
But you know where else that is happening?
Right there on the other bench in this series.
The Celtics, behind Ime Udoka, are creating their own culture right here in Boston. Udoka exudes confidence with his matter of fact personality. He doesn’t avoid telling other teams which matchups he was trying to pick on. He’s not afraid to tell Mike Budenholzer, through the media, that his team could get certain shots any time they wanted. And he’s certainly not afraid to call out his players both privately and publicly.
When the Celtics unraveled in the third quarter of Game 1 against Miami, he said flat-out that his team “got out-physicaled, got out-toughed,” later adding that his team got punked. He said the same thing behind closed doors, and challenged his team to raise their level of play.
“If a team is just going to come out and out-hustle you, like I said, there wasn't a lot of things schematically that they did different, we could match that intensity,” Udoka said. “We pride ourselves on being one of the tougher teams, so we knew if we matched that we'd be in good shape (in Game 2). Not much needed to be said. Everybody saw it.”
That's part of why this team has grown into a resilient group. There is no cheating the game or cheating each other on the Celtics. The confidence flows from Udoka to the players. They feel it from him, and they return it on the floor.
“His level of poise, his level of confidence never changed,” Jaylen Brown said after the Bucks series. “Even when we were down 2-1 or when we were down 3-2, you could tell, the look in his eyes, that we were gonna win this series. We just needed to handle our business and sometimes you can get in those moments and go away from everything, or start to make over-adjustments. And he didn’t. Like we maintained our poise … kept our confidence and found a way to win the series.”
Now they're 1-1 against Miami, the same spot they were in against Milwaukee. The venues have flipped since the Heat had home court, but the situation is similar, but with one big difference.
Having been here before, the Celtics now have the experience to understand what they did wrong against the champs, and what they need to do right against the Heat. Each series is its own entity but the lessons of mental focus and resilience have stayed consistent.
Once things snapped into place for this team, they became an entirely different entity. The 2021-22 Celtics season might as well be called the 2021 Celtics and the 2022 Celtics, because the 2021 team had none of these qualities.
The 2022 Celtics, that team is strong and tough and learns lessons. Miami has their own culture, but Boston has begun building a pretty strong one too. That starts with Udoka, and because they’ve all bought into it, it’s now part of this team’s DNA.
“This is the group I feel like it’s poised enough to get it done,” Brown said heading into this series. “I feel like everything that we've overcome, all these battles and challenges and adversity that we've been through this season, as well as the challenge that we just had overcoming the defending champs, I think that we are prepared. I think that we're ready to take that next step. We just got to go out and take it.”
