Before we get to the Game 2 stuff, Charles Lee will be leaving the team after one season as an assistant coach to go take over the mess in Charlotte. He won’t be leaving until the season is over.
Lee is a rudder on Mazzulla’s staff. He’s the guy who reminds Joe Mazzulla to stay on task when Joe’s competitive nature might get the best of him during a game. He also is one of the main voices in building this Celtics defense.
“He brought just that level of perspective obviously with the drop defense that they had (in Milwaukee),” Mazzulla said of Lee earlier this season. “His ability to teach it and coach it. And we’ve talked about it before, they were a team that gave up a ton of (3s) protecting the paint first. So it’s good having him and good having a bunch of guys from different places that bring those dynamics.”
This was a pretty predictable result for this coaching staff. Boston has had a lot of success and Lee has been highly-respected for a while now. If the Bucks didn’t screw up by firing Mike Budenholzer, Lee would have been poached from that staff this summer without having to switch teams.
It’s a tough loss for Boston, but successful teams have coaching turnover all the time. Lee is finishing his playoff run, so there won’t be any disruptions there. The Celtics will spend time this summer dealing with that and any other potential coaching losses that might come up. They have some good internal candidates to be promoted and there is always talent out there that wants to join a winner.
Congrats to Lee. I hope the Hornets give him the tools he needs to succeed.
Meanwhile, back in Boston…
The Celtics won Game 1 of their semifinal series by 25. They trailed by two for 17 seconds, spent 48 seconds tied, and they led for 46:55. And yet, it wasn’t their best game. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, on the Hoop Collective podcast, said Boston put up a C-minus performance.
“Obviously Game 1, there's a feeling out process so I expect, especially them coming off a Game 7 at 1 o-clock and then having to play later, I expect a much, much more fierce game by them and we have to be ready for that,” Mazzulla said “They’re a really good team and I thought we showed we did some good stuff against them. But I thought we have to play better, and I think they will too.”
Overreacting to Game 1 is difficult to avoid. The Cavs looked bad in Game 1, getting a monster Donovan Mitchell game and still losing by 25. But Mitchell kept them within striking distance throughout the game. If they’d gotten anything meaningful from Darius Garland, Max Strus, or Evan Mobley, maybe the story of Game 1 is very different.
But at the same time, Boston’s offense missed some wide-open shots early that could have gotten more separation earlier.
"The Heat switched more. They maintained more,” Payton Pritchard said. “We got some more stuff from those types of actions. I thought we made the right basketball players and missed some easy ones. They're going to come out better from this next game and probably going to make some adjustments, so we gotta be ready for that and keep our foot on the gas."
Keeping their foot on the gas is important because it would be very easy for the Celtics to come into Game 2 thinking a C-minus effort (I gave them a B, for the record) would be enough to win easily.
“I think that’s a lie. Every game is different,” Mazzulla said. “What it takes to win one game isn’t what takes to win another game. Over the course of a playoff series, you have to fight to play your best basketball and you can't rely on whatever it is that won that last game. I thought the guys attention to detail and mindset was really good today, but again, it doesn't guarantee anything. We could play really, really well (in Game 2) and it might not go our way”
The Celtics have to be prepared for new wrinkles. The Cavs were able to stay close with Boston in terms of shots and 3-pointers attempted, which is half the battle against the Celtics. Now they have to make the shots, which might mean a different set of players getting the shots. Sam Merrill didn’t shoot well in Game 1 but he could still be more of a focus in Game 2. Georges Niang has been phased out of the Cavs rotation, but he’s also the type of shooter who could get hot, especially playing in front of family and friends.
That would also give the Celtics more targets to attack. The Cavs might not care much about that because they already gave up 120 points in Game 1. With Jayson Tatum struggling from the field, they might flip their approach from trying to limit Tatum to daring Tatum to carry the load and limit everyone else. Tatum took some ill-advised shots, so I can see the Cavs wondering if they can do to Boston what Boston did to them.
Tatum was clearly searching for his shot in the second half of Game 1. He started the game out 4-9 from the field then went 3-10 the rest of the way. But contrary to what some say, he didn’t have a bad game.
“People have bad shooting nights, but what is he doing?” Pritchard said. “He had some great defensive plays, he made the easy passes which led to assists. Big rebounds, what did he end up with 11 rebounds? It's just the casuals who think it's all about the shots. But there's so many different areas he can affect the game. If he only gets 18 points, but we get a win by 25 points, he was very impactful.”
Tatum was +18 in 34 minutes, so he had a very positive impact on the game. His defense was very good, both on ball and as a help defender. He also had five assists, some of which were very easy because he drew three defenders.
This is the power of Tatum. The Cavs sell out to stop him and Derrick White is all alone for 3.
The Cavs are being presented with a pick-you-poison scenario but all the cups are poisoned (Tatum has spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder). But watch the power of Tatum in ways that don’t show up in the box score, like this cut he makes that gets Jaylen Brown room to attack.
With Mobley trailing in transition, Tatum breaks for the basket, drawing Mitchell’s attention. It’s a smart cut that could have gotten the pass, but it also screamed for attention because he is who he is. And then there's a play like this:
Tatum sets a flare screen for White and the action draws the attention of two defenders. One of those guys, probably Strus, is actually supposed to be here:
What’s supposed to happen from there is Mitchell helps on the Brown drive. Strus, by being in that spot, encourages a pass to the corner, which he closes out on. Mobley, as soon as Mitchell breaks to help, gets out to White to be there in time for the swing (that’s called an X-out, because Strus and Mobley sort of make an X with their paths). Garland stays home on Tatum.
By being too preoccupied with Tatum, Strus and Garland force Mitchell to make a choice, which is to stay home on the corner 3. A contested layup is a lower efficiency shot than a wide-open corner 3, especially from Holiday, the best in the game from the corners this season. So Mitchell just hopes the contest on the Brown layup is enough to cause a miss.
Tatum’s impact can be felt all over the floor on offense. So as long as he’s active, the rest of the Celtics can get some great looks. Brown especially can thrive with Tatum causing distractions and without Jarrett Allen protecting the rim.
So Boston’s offense can keep doing what it’s doing. They can treat Tatum as the head of the snake, but this Celtics team is a Medusa. There are snakes everywhere. If they single-cover Tatum, then the next piece I do will be about Brown’s gravity and the attention paid to him.
But the key is to do everything with force and pace. The Celtics can’t get caught up in the slow-down game, which Tatum did do a few times in Game 1. Whatever they present him, he has to take it quickly. If Game 2 calls on him to score, then he’ll drop 50. If it calls on him to do other stuff, then he might score half that or less and it won’t matter.
“We’re winning and he’s playmaking,” Holiday said. “Jayson is more than just a scorer. He’s a complete basketball player who does everything. So I think for him to be able to damn near average a triple-double almost every game is something he can do.”