The Celtics checked off all the boxes they needed on their way to a blowout win over the Heat.
They came out hot, putting to rest any fears that the late regular season malaise might bleed into the playoffs. They defended and rebounded, making sure a scrappy Miami team missing their best player didn’t have the chance to string together any kind of extended run until it was way too late. And they ran good offense, generating good looks which Boston knocked down.
In short, the Celtics handled their business. They opened on a big run, absorbed a couple of Miami punches, and they fired back. It was wonderful to watch. The Celtics set the tone and poured it on. It’s a hell of a way to finish off the weekend and head into work on Monday, happily listening to your favorite podcast over and over and over again to celebrate.
(Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?)
But as much as fun as you might be having, this game means almost nothing if the Celtics can’t replicate on Wednesday night.
“I think there was a four- or five-minute stretch where we didn’t handle it well, but I thought the other 42, 43 minutes, that’s the recipe,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “The balance is having the humility to do it even better. So 11 turnovers, got them on the shot margin, didn’t foul, and held them to five offensive rebounds. So the adjustment is do it better. Do it with more physicality, and we’ve got to be ready to do that.”
Honestly, this felt like a regular-season game. There was some extra juice at the beginning, and the crowd loved the opening 9-0 run that led to the timeout. But as the lead wore on, the TD Garden crowd settled into celebrating another almost generic blowout that followed a similar script: Boston moved the ball well, they got hot from 3, they pushed the pace and built up a big lead, they relaxed and gave a bunch of it back, and then they recovered to render that lapse meaningless.
But tucked into that fourth quarter start is Boston’s willingness to coast when they feel things are in hand. Normally, they do that when the lead is about 20 late in the game, so I’m happy to see them get to 34 before they felt comfortable. And if we’re being totally honest, they were technically right about being able to coast for a bit and then turn it on for one more burst to put out the smoldering embers lurking under the house they just burned to the ground. They won by 20. Who’s going to complain about that?
Not me, but it doesn't mean the Celtics are completely off the hook here, either.
“We cannot just take it for granted and be like ‘okay, we're going to just be able to walk past them,’” Kristaps Porzingis said. “So just maintaining that healthy edge for us going forward is going to be very important.”
Game 1 was as comfortable as a playoff game can get. The Celtics met little resistance and they were able to target every mismatch on the floor. They did it by being methodical, by making the right read and pass when the Heat tried whatever they could to stop the Boston buzzsaw. Jayson Tatum played beautiful basketball by accepting double teams and moving the ball, and he was rewarded with a triple-double. The ball movement got everyone going, and it made them impossible to defend.
And then the fourth quarter reminded everyone that when the Celtics walk the ball up the floor, get into their sets late, and don’t move, they are no longer special. They can drop the “extra” from extraordinary in a hurry when they stop following the plan.
“This is the playoffs against a good team … It's not going to be easy,” Tatum said. “No lead is necessarily safe. Don't panic in a sense when they go on a run and hit shots. Just continue to play the right way.”
Game 1 was mostly played the right way, so we excuse the portion of the game they didn’t with a slight admonishment and stern finger-wag. But if they come out of this game, or any game this series, feeling too comfortable and too good about this series, they will get smacked by reality in a hurry.
This was a nearly perfect start to the playoffs, and luckily the guys who did take bumps were able to come out of it feeling alright. Now it’s done, and it means nothing. We don’t know how Game 2 will go, but we do know that Boston needs to do everything all over again as if Game 1 didn’t happen. If they do that, this will be an easy series. If they think Game 1 shows this will be an easy series, then we’re all jumping back on the roller coaster.