The Celtics are a Tesla. They're a sleek, modern, technological marvel. They're built with a new world in mind.
The Nuggets are a vintage Porsche 911. Also sleek and marvelous, its classic engineering stands the test of time.
You can put a key in a classic 911, turn it, and the engine will let out a low, rumbling purr like a satisfied mountain lion. Keep all the parts in proper working order, and this baby will fly with the best of ‘em.
The Tesla will, too. Hell, it will even drive itself for a while. But it has its glitches. Its heart is a computer, which takes away that satisfying key turn. It also needs to be updated. And if you’re going on a long drive, you have to make sure your route includes charging stations.
The Tesla is ultimately better, but technology has a way of letting you down from time to time.
The Celtics and Nuggets gave us what we wanted on Thursday night. It was billed as a potential Finals preview and it delivered. Emotions were high, each team threw and took punches, and they once again found themselves in the final minute of a game with the result very much in doubt.
But once again, the classic engineering was just a bit more reliable.
“Every detail matters when you're playing against another great team,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “They were able to take advantage of some of those margins there. But so that's the stuff that we'll learn from.”
The Nuggets know exactly who they are. There is always something to learn for every NBA team, but Denver’s success is less about that and more about doing what they do consistently. When Nikola Jokic spun in the lane and Jrue Holiday blitzed him with 21.5 seconds to go, he barely had enough time to process who was open. But he knew that Aaron Gordon was on the baseline. Gordon knew that he needed to get in position for a pass. Jokic seemed to pass it more to a spot than to a person, and Gordon was the person who got to that spot.
The Nuggets were getting to their spots all night long, led by a dominant Jokic who showed what a real MVP candidate looks like.
“He was definitely in his bag tonight,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “He's just an incredible basketball player. (There were) some things I learned from him today, actually. He's just so smart. So crafty.”
Porzingis would only elaborate to say he picked up a couple of tricks, but those tricks will certainly come in handy should these teams meet again. Porzingis alone couldn't handle Jokic, which led to on-the-fly decisions that left other options open. And no matter what that option was, Denver found it and exploited it.
The Celtics, meanwhile, were making just enough mistakes to trigger everyone’s basketball PTSD. Jayson Tatum didn’t play well. Jaylen Brown didn’t make his free throws. The offense flittered back into isolation, settling for 3-pointers, and ill-timed, live-ball turnovers. Boston’s league-leading offense with it’s 121.4 rating only mustered a 111.2 rating against Denver.
“Turnovers, free throws, just missing defensive assignments. All that stuff we gotta be better at,” Brown said. “It starts with me, starts with the top, starts with Jayson. We made so many mistakes and it cost us in the end.”
The Celtics still seem to be finding themselves in certain situations. One unintended consequence of being so good is that these tight games haven't happened very often. These situations are impossible to simulate in practice because there's nothing really on the line there. The cameras aren’t rolling. The misses don’t matter.
There is no pressure.
But there was in Denver and Cleveland. There were very different reasons for those two losses, but they were both losses. Both involved star players not delivering in some manner, which evokes memories of past playoff failures.
And one thing people don’t want to see is anything resembling past failures. A game like this raises questions about a team trying to shed negative perceptions of itself. Boston wanted to win and they didn’t, which makes people wonder if they’ll be able to win when “potential Finals preview” becomes “The Finals.”
The Celtics did show some good things on Thursday night in Denver, but the loss will cloud that. Boston has spent the better part of two semesters building up an impressive resume, but now they've failed a couple of tests.
The Celtics are still the best team, but now reasonable doubt had crept into the minds of the jury. All the evidence had shown they are the clear favorites, but now people won’t be quite so quick to buy into that. They have to start selling themselves again, and the only way to do that is to show us they're figuring things out.
“They beat us a couple of times. The margin of who wins or who loses is so small,” Porzingis said. “We have to learn and we have to improve and (there are) also some mental things that we could take from this game. We had some emotional plays that we were not going to allow to happen in the playoffs, some technicals that we don't need completely. And those are things that that will take away from this game and bounce back.”