BRIGHTON — Game 1 went about as well as the Boston Celtics could have hoped from a results standpoint. They thoroughly dominated the Philadelphia 76ers, earning a 123-91 victory at TD Garden.
Now, the Celtics face the same crossroads that pop up every postseason. To forget, or not to forget. A wire-balancing act.
It’s impossible to ignore Game 1.
“[Game 1] left a ton of possessions where we have to be better,” Joe Mazzulla said at practice on Monday. “So, it's really just about the same stuff. Come back, watch those 15, 20, sometimes 25 [possessions] in the playoffs. And it's like, here's where we were good, here's where we got to be better.”
Yet at the same time, it’s not the end-all, be-all.
“I think you obviously want to be prepared for what might happen, [and] at the same time, not be distracted [from] the fundamentals and intangibles, Mazzulla said.
“Game 2 is going to be completely different than Game 1, and we gotta be ready for whatever the challenges [are],” Derrick White said.
The playoffs are a never-ending slugfest. A Royal Rumble of new tactics, challenges, and opponents to deal with. Even in the flow of a series, everything can change from game to game.
So, for the Celtics to adequately prepare themselves for Game 2 against the Sixers, focusing on Game 1 isn’t enough. It’s not even close. At a certain point, it may even be detrimental.
The word “adjustments” gets thrown around daily as the postseason rolls on. And though there is certainly merit to the concept, the idea that it’s merely a game-to-game process is inaccurate.
“Both teams, last night, there [were] a ton of adjustments made on both ends throughout the entire game,” Mazzulla said. “And so, you look at, they went zone in the middle of the second quarter. They went to a couple of different pick-and-roll coverages in the end of the third and the start of the fourth quarter. We did a little bit of that.”
Adjustments are happening every second of every possession of every game. Philadelphia could come out with a completely different coverage in Game 2, but a quarter into the night, they may revert to what they were running in Game 1.
All Boston can do is prepare, and even then, there’s only so much to learn from a single playoff game. Most of the preparation has to be internal.
And a lot of it comes from the regular season, rather than a one-game playoff sample size.
“I think the way you prepare throughout the season helps you navigate in-game things where it's like, okay, now we gotta go to this because they're doing that,” Mazzulla said. “But I think tomorrow's game has a lot to do with the mentality that we bring from a physicality standpoint.”
That’s the challenge of the postseason. The unknown. The uncertainty.
It’s easy to follow a game plan. It’s hard to react in real time. And it’s impossible to know what’s going to happen next.
The Celtics’ Game 1 defense, for example. They gave up 91 points to a Tyrese Maxey-led offense. Quite the feat. But how much was Boston’s own successes versus the 76ers’ faults?
“I think it's a combination of both,” Mazzulla said. “I mean, situationally, there's ones that we have to try and get the best contest possible to make them more difficult, and some of them, they just missed wide open ones. So, it's a balance of both.”
Results are what drive championships. But results are impossible to achieve without a stringent process. A set of rules, guidelines, and principles that guide a team as they strive for the ultimate result: A title.
“That goes back to, kind of, the process, right?” Mazzulla said. “Whether the shot went in or not, was it a good defensive possession? Whether the shot [went in] or not, was it a good offensive possession? You can win and play poorly, you can lose and play great.
“So, we just gotta have an understanding of when we're at our best, have an understanding of where we can be better, and be ready knowing that they'll play much better next game.”
For Boston, the gap between Games 1 and 2 will be spent doubling down on what went well and fine-tuning what didn’t.
“Just tightening everything up,” Payton Pritchard said. “Obviously, they had a lot of and-ones, stuff like that. Some momentum plays that could have swung their way. So, a playoff game could swing very easily, so just trying to control that, cleaning up our efficiency on offense, and then just limiting more things defensively.”
Because, at the end of the day, it was just one game. One of the 16 Boston needs if it wants to win an NBA championship this summer.
Holding Philadelphia to 91 points is an impressive start, but now that start is gone with the wind.
A feat of the past.
“It was a good first game,” Pritchard said. “Got the win, so now we gotta do it again.”