MIAMI -- The first sign of problems for Boston came late in the third quarter.
With 1:45 left to the play in the third, the Heat had shot 6-21 from deep, just 28.6%. Aside from Boston’s 16-0 stretch spanning the end of the first half and the beginning of the second, this was a pretty disjointed game. The Heat missed a ton of opportunities by settling for 3-pointers instead of going at the Celtics (well, everyone not named Bam Adebayo), and they were paying the price.
Then, at the 1:44 mark, Victor Oladipo hit one that opened the floodgates. Miami shot 6-12 the rest of the way while Boston could only muster 2-10 beyond the arc. The barrage from deep set the stage for Adebayo to destroy Boston down the middle, and for the Celtics to get swept up in trying to stem the rising red tide with a group of guys who have never played together this season.
Jayson Tatum, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, Payton Pritchard, and Derrick White, have never played a second of basketball together as a group this season, yet circumstances thrust them into this spot.
It’s no wonder they couldn't execute.
“A little bit. Yeah, a little bit,” Joe Mazzulla managed to admit when asked if the lineups had an impact on the late-game execution. “But our guys, they played really well.”
In general, I agree. The Celtics would probably win this game if they had any one of their missing regulars. Their injury report of Jaylen Brown, Malcolm Brogdon, Marcus Smart, Al Horford, and Danilo Gallinari, if fully healthy, would probably be fighting for a fifth or sixth seed in the east. The Celtics could have used any one of those wing players to pick up some of the slack and make a shot against the zone defense. It would have been nice to have Horford to throw at Adebayo for a possession or two.
But that wasn’t the case, and the Celtics were left to cobble together a closing lineup. And dammit, it almost worked.
When Grant Williams tied the game with a late 3-pointer, the Celtics had an opportunity to steal back the win they’d let get away. Adebayo took advantage of Boston’s lack of size to get a clean look at a jumper and bury it, but the Celtics were still comfortable with their position.
"It was smart for us not to call a timeout with some guys out there that we wanted for them to keep on the floor,” Tatum said of his critical possession, and ultimately turnover with a second left. “We didn't want them to necessarily step up their defense and a timeout. So I think not calling a timeout was smart. Obviously, they trust me in that situation to make the right play.”
Mazzulla said he anticipated what the Heat would do, and they did it. By sending two to the ball, they opened themselves up to a mismatch.
“I was looking for that, so that's on me to put him in a better situation,” Mazzulla said. “I gotta put up a better play that allows him to see that better. He couldn't see the two on one well enough. So I gotta call a better play there.”
Said Tatum, “They doubled Rob's roll to the basket. I should've just threw it to D-White in the slot, throwing a cross-court pass that late that time of the game is pretty risky and it backfired on me."
Looking at the play, Mazzulla was right about Tatum not being able to see things correctly, because no one doubled Williams at all.
Tatum could have given the ball to Williams in the middle of the floor and he undoubtedly would have drawn some kind of reaction, and he could have made the next pass to whichever guy got open. Yes, the pass to White was there as well, and White could have driven to make a play, Tatum could have relocated, and maybe he would have gotten a good look.
“We had the ball in our best player's hands,” Mazzulla said. “I knew that because of their offensive lineup, they were gonna play this coverage. I just didn't call the right play. I have to call a better play to get the better spacing for him to see it better.”
Just like the previous night, a loss in this situation is both unfortunate but unsurprising. Boston had chances to win, but a shift in the personnel might have made this a much easier endeavor.
But unlike the previous night, there were chances to execute late in this game and Boston’s two main characters, Tatum and Mazzulla, each made tough mistakes. This was a missed opportunity to snag a good win.
“I think it just more comes down to execution,” Mazzulla said. “Some of that's on me, some of that's on the guys as far as just the managing of our spacing, especially against the zone and just fighting for good looks. … (but) I thought they really did a great job of managing the game for the majority of it and it was just two good teams playing and they made a few more plays than we did in the end.”
