In the aftermath of what might have been the final game of the season at the TD Garden, crews roamed through the stands filling garbage bags with thousands of dollars worth of discarded food and drink.
One of the bull gang workers cleaned to a soundtrack. He had his phone attached to his hip, blaring 80’s music through its tiny speaker. The best sound it could muster was tinny and low quality, much like the old transistor radios people used to carry around for their own chores or maybe a day at the beach.
A lot of work went into that phone so it could stream an online station, but in the end, it’s just a box playing low-grade sound so some dude can pass the time. It’s funny that technology has come this long a way to produce, basically, the same product.
We can say the same of the Celtics, who have come the longest of ways in this season and who have worked incredibly hard, only to end up doing basically the same thing, producing the same product, in their biggest game of the season.
“We're frustrated, but if it was easy, it wouldn't be us,” Derrick White said after the 111-103 Game 6 loss to the Heat. “We're going to get on this plane, we're going to go down to Miami and try to get the big win in Game 7. We've been here before, and we've got a lot of confidence in our group.”
The fourth quarter of a closeout game at home is supposed to belong to the home team and the home stars. The momentum of White’s eight-point outburst in the opening minutes is supposed to break down the visiting team’s resolve.
But Boston let Jimmy Butler get too comfortable, too early, and they paid a high price. When he got the ball with two seconds left on the shot clock and Boston down only four late in the game, everyone in the building knew he was going to turn and fire. Everyone also knew it was going in, because that's the night he was having.
“He just had it rolling. Made a lot of shots that on film we'll live with,” Jaylen Brown said. “Made four threes, I don't think he's made four threes in a game all Playoffs, but tonight he came out and he was aggressive. He played like his back was on the wall and he had an amazing game, and we just had no answers for him tonight. We've got to do a better job -- we will do a better job on Sunday.”
One surefire way to keep Butler and the Heat from getting too comfortable is to stop turning the ball over, but Boston just keeps finding themselves in the wrong kind of trouble on the floor. Brown and Jayson Tatum cough the ball up so much lately that their hands need to be tested for COVID. They give the ball to Miami often enough that Wyc Grousbeck can call Micky Arison and ask if he’ll cover some of their salaries since so much of their work benefits the Heat lately.
“Either too loose with it, them coming out physical and us being caught off guard, which we shouldn't be at this point,” Ime Udoka said of the sloppy play. “It's the same type of turnovers. Just getting poked away or playing in the crowd and us being surprised that they're going to reach, hold, grab and do what they do.”
The fact that Celtics players continue to be surprised by this speaks to why they continue to play like this. They don’t seem to understand that things aren’t going to change, and therefore they are unable to adjust. Whether it’s ego or insanity, the Celtics are caught in a feedback loop that needs some kind of reset.
Like that phone, Boston is capable of so much more. I don’t think the folks at Apple or Samsung sat around the table and pondered how to make a device that would do Loverboy’s “Working For The Weekend” auditory justice, just like I don’t think Udoka and his staff came out of their film sessions thinking two combined shots for their two stars down the stretch is a great offensive plan. They're not drawing anything up that's supposed to result in Tatum and Brown being responsible for 65% of the team’s turnovers.
They’ve worked too hard, for too long, to be doing this same old thing. They’ve come too far this season to have this game be the last before the parquet is packed up and put into storage.
Everybody's going off the deep end after this game.
Everybody needs a second chance, and the Celtics will get theirs on Sunday, even though they didn’t want it to go this way with a Finals berth just waiting for them.
You want a piece of my heart,
You better start from the start.
You wanna be in the show?
Come on baby let's go!
… Oh c’mon man turn that damn phone off.
