Joe Mazzulla used two words to describe Boston’s feelings after Game 1.
“Angry. Pissed.”
They had themselves to blame for that loss and they knew it. They played too casual and too loose and it burned them … again. And so the Celtics found themselves facing adversity of their own doing … again.
“You can be frustrated, we were very frustrated with the game, but at midnight we had to let it go,” Marcus Smart said. “We knew what we did wrong, we knew what we did right, we knew what we need to do more of, and that was get out and run. Joe put a game plan together and we came out and executed tonight.”
Somehow, someone needs to convince the Celtics they're perpetually down in these series because that's when they're at their best. Facing a critically important Game 2 against a team most people, even many in Philadelphia, expect them to beat, the Celtics did something we haven't seen much of over the past few weeks.
They defended.
“We got stops, and we were able to get out and run, and we got great looks,” Mazzulla said. “And we made the right play every single time.”
It’s no secret that Boston focuses on offense a lot, and that seems to have impacted the level of defense they have been playing in the playoffs. The Celtics seem to tend towards answering the other team rather than stopping them, which is a recipe for disaster over the long haul.
Defense, however, travels. Efforts like the one the Celtics put forth on Wednesday night in the Garden can win games even when shots aren't falling. Or, in the case of a Game 2, defense can buy a team time until the shots finally start to drop.
The Celtics went 7-15 from deep in a 35-point third quarter that ended the game early. Five of those came in the final 4:23 when the Celtics broke the game open. Three of them came off misses or turnovers.
“It really started with our defense,” Malcolm Brogdon said. “We were able to get stops, get out -- shots get easier when you get stops and you’re not taking the ball out of the net over and over. So we were getting open shots and we were shooting them with confidence.”
After allowing the Sixers to post an offensive rating of 129.3 in Game 1, the Celtics' defense held Philly to a meager 91.6. The Sixers took 10 fewer shots overall and James Harden took less than half as many (14) as he did in Game 1 (30).
“It started with (Jaylen Brown), he set the tone,” Brogdon said, praising Boston’s star wing for taking on the challenge of guarding Harden and successfully limiting him. “They came out great and played a great game in the first one. James played great. I thought tonight we flipped the script on that, we did a great job on him and a great job overall.”
Of course, this game means a lot less if the Celtics go back to feeling comfortable about their chances. If they kick back and believe the rest of the series will be a breeze because Joel Embiid is back nowhere near his usual self, then they’ll be right back where they were yesterday. At some point, somehow, some way, the message has to get into everyone’s head and stay there.
“For us, it’s just a matter of understanding exactly what we want to accomplish on that side of the basketball,” Grant Williams said. “We just have to make sure that defense is that priority, top of our minds, that we come in every single night knowing that we’re not allowing the best players to get comfortable, we’re not allowing any player to get comfortable, and then our offense is going to propel us to new heights.”
This is what it’s supposed to look like every night from now on. This is the standard:
Defense leads to offense pic.twitter.com/0kzQqo0y00
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) May 4, 2023
Look at that aggressive, forceful double team. Harden didn’t have time to casually make a play.
Look at that communication and positioning to not allow someone to get a free run to the hoop.
Look at Grant Williams finding the open guy, sprinting to him, and taking him out of the play AFTER he was done double-teaming Harden.
This is a commitment to defense. This is what it has to be for basically just another six weeks.
That's all that's left to play (assuming they accomplish their stated goal). Do this for three more games against Philadelphia. Do it four times against New York or Miami. Do it four more times after that.
There's no reason why the Celtics can give 11 games worth of this defensive effort. It’s not a tall order.
“I think at the end of the day, it's embracing that challenge,” Brown said. “I just think defense is all about pride, defense is all about effort and we got to do a better job no matter who is out there. Our team defense and our team intensity has been lacking throughout the playoffs and going forward we need to make sure that we embrace each and every challenge with ball pressure, with intensity and stuff like that.”
Once again the Celtics have shown us who they can be. They have shown us what their best can look like. They have been a team that historically lets their defense do the talking and the offense would follow. They still have a chance to let that be their calling card.
We’ll see if they can do it. For now, it was nice to see the old Celtics doing what they do best … frustrate the hell out of the Sixers with a huge defensive effort and bury them with the offense it creates.
“Yeah, it felt amazing,” Smart said. “We know we’re going to score the ball. We know we can score the ball. Defensively is where we’ve got to make our names and continue to show our identity. It felt good to come out and impose our will defensively.”