Karalis: Celtics go off script, but still survive an early playoff test

The Hawks ended up being like that annoying piece of cellophane that you can’t get off your hand no matter what you do. Opening that box seemed like an easy task, but for some reason they wrapped this film around it and now it just … won’t … go … away … 

The Celtics took an extra game to get the job done against Atlanta, which was annoying for you, me, and Janet Jackson, which is the only time all of us can commiserate about something together. If you ever see Janet, you can bond with her over how upset you were over the series going back to Atlanta. 

Hey, at least Jayson Tatum apologized for it. 

It didn’t go exactly like most of us thought, which was aggravating. We lost trust (those of us who still had some) in this team’s ability to handle prosperity when they couldn't close out the series in Boston. And even now there are people who still question how this whole run will go. 

When the script is written ahead of time, which it always is in sports, anything that deviates from that one way or another tends to get an extreme reaction. 

“I know the narrative of we were supposed to sweep them or it’s supposed to be a cakewalk, but the playoffs is -- that's why it’s so special,” Tatum said. “Each game is different. Each series is different … there's been some high-level basketball being played by players and teams and great coaching. And it was a great test for us, coming here in this environment.” 

The Hawks wanted no part of any predetermined outcomes, and they deserve credit for that. They could have packed it in on Tuesday night with the understanding that seventh seeds who spent the whole season floating around the .500 mark generally don’t whip off three straight wins. They could have accepted the Dejounte Murray suspension, accepted their fate, and just moved on to their summer vacations.

They didn’t. Not in Game 5, and definitely not in Game 6. 

“The way I describe it is like, in the playoffs you got basketball, you got execution, and then you got this, like, fight,” Jaylen Brown said. “They might not have had all the X's and O's but they fought. They fought us. They offensive rebounded, they played hard, they gave effort, they used their athleticism. They didn’t back down from no challenges, and that's what we needed to step up, was the fight of the game. That's what we had to match.”

Effort and fight go a long way in the NBA, especially against a team that doesn’t think it has to fight as hard to win a game or series. But the Celtics figured it out, and ultimately, that's the most important thing. 

The beginning of the series was predictable, but Atlanta’s dogged determination was not. Boston spent a lot of the early part of this series essentially gifting certain players, like John Collins, any perimeter shot they wanted. In Game 6, after Collins roasted them in Game 5, the Celtics were reacting and trying to close out on the shots. They had to. By Thursday night, a Hawks team that was in the bottom third in 3-point shooting was riddling the Celtics with deep bombs.

“They had the utmost confidence throughout this game, and you could see it the way they played, the shots they was hitting, the crowd was into it,” Tatum said. “That was a fun game to be a part of and a fun game to win.”

You know what? It was fun.

Maybe this is what the Celtics needed. Maybe this is what Joe Mazzulla needed right away in order to learn even more lessons that could be quickly applied. Maybe that's part of why the last five minutes of this game featured six made baskets and one turnover while the last five minutes of Game 5 saw two makes and four turnovers.  

“I thought last game, because of me and my play calling, we played slow,” Mazzulla said. “I thought this game, I kind of learned from that and then they were very proactive. And so when you play fast, late game -- and playing fast, doesn't mean helter skelter, it's just we got organized really fast, we got spaced fast, we found the advantage fast, and we made the right plays… at the end of the game, when you can put pressure on defenses by playing with a sense of pace, it can really help you.”

Hey, at least someone is learning lessons around here. 

There are no style points in sports, and that's especially true in the playoffs. The Celtics absolutely should not have let this get to six games, and they need to avoid extending these series if they want to remain fresh for the full run, but they still wrapped it up without going the full seven.

They're moving on. And as long as they can keep doing that, however they can, they’ll get to where they need to be.