We’ve seen that movie before.
Jaylen Brown had just capped a 7-2 run to give Boston their biggest lead of the game, and he did it on a wild fadeaway over Bam Adebayo. On the way back, he did the “too small” gesture, which is always a classic.
It felt like Boston was in total control. But Miami pushed the ball after the make and got a 3-pointer in the confusion, which involved Brown and Smart trying to figure out who was covering Gabe Vincent.
Okay, basketball gods, we see you. Karmic retribution for the celebration rather than finding your man.
But then things started to fall apart, and it started to feel a whole lot like last October. Brown picked up his fourth foul on an illegal screen, which led to a Vincent jumper. Then Jayson Tatum missed a shot, Al Horford threw a bad pass, and Brown committed another offensive foul.
The Celtics didn’t just go scoreless over 3:43, they only attempted one shot in that stretch.
On October 21, 2021, this Celtics team would have folded. Before their big January turnaround, this was a team that let runs like this get out of control. The story of the game would have been how the Celtics blew a 14-point, fourth-quarter lead with almost half the quarter gone.
This time, they didn’t.
“We didn't let it snowball. We kept playing and was able to still win the game,” Brown said after the game. “But those are times that we got to be a little bit more stronger with the basketball, make better decisions.”
We love to use year-over-year comparisons to measure growth, and it’s one of the main ways we judge our investment decisions. The Celtics' decision to invest in this roster -- building around Tatum and Brown, paying Horford, adding Malcolm Brogdon -- is evident in this year-over-year advancement in how they closed this game.
This time around, they kept their poise and attacked the rim instead of jacking up 3-pointers. Tatum hit two shots in the paint, Marcus Smart followed with a layup, and then Tatum got two free throws. The only 3-pointer was Horford’s capper in the corner, which was wide open on a nice drive-and-kick from Tatum.
That's maturity, and how a good team closes games. They pulled themselves out of the funk and they finished.
"This was a great test for us,” Joe Mazzulla said. “I thought our guys did a great job responding but we'll be judged by how well we handle our success."
The Celtics will certainly blow some leads. Every team has bad losses and a choke or two on their resume by the end of a long season. But the Celtics passing this kind of test this early is one of those good signs that lessons of the past have been absorbed.
“We're poised, we’re experienced, we got a lot of good players on our team,” Brown said. “But that's something that we definitely got to look out for. Teams are gonna get the best punch every single night so we can't be surprised.”
Good teams win games like this. The Celtics faced a rival on the road and took multiple shots that might normally lead to losses. They absorbed a huge 20-6 run and whipped off an exact answer of their own. They let go of the proverbial rope, but then grabbed it again.
One of their two stars helped build a big lead, and the other helped save it. Their depth came through when Brogdon finished the game instead of Brown due to foul trouble (and maybe a misstep by their rookie head coach).
They figured it out. And that's something they weren’t doing a year ago. Eventually something clicked, and they went on a massive run, but even in that, they were rolling teams. Grinding out tough wins is the mark of a mature, tough team. And that's what this team is now.
“We still got a lot of growth that we can get to,” Brown said. “I think that we played two really good teams, two tough teams, physical teams, and we handled it pretty well. But I think we can be even better. I think we can be even more spaced. I think we can take care of the ball better. I think we can be better on defense than we've been. So I think it's a lot of positives in the last few games but, I mean, look out. We got a lot of room to grow.”
