MIAMI — Coming out of halftime, the Celtics needed someone new if they were going to save their season. But after a few minutes, it was clear that this was not the case. Jaylen Brown is stuck in the corner, another turnover is coming and things are about to slip out of their hands.
Then suddenly, a sixth Celtic walks onto the court. There’s Joe Mazzulla, calling a timeout in the middle of a possession.
It was a true aberration, as the coach who waited for a timeout to let his team work out their problems for much of the year burned one just to stop a game from going south.
Mazzulla sees how letting the turning points guide themselves can get momentum spinning in the wrong direction. One more spiral can write the end.
“Just wanted to make sure we got a good shot at that, and I felt like possessions in the past weren’t good defensively,” Mazzulla said. “But we still played with a good sense of pace, but we obviously lost the advantage, and we wanted to reset a little bit. We lost a 50/50 ball to start the quarter which I think we just needed to get rid of that once in a while to do that.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
But as Mazzulla gathered his thoughts during a timeout, Marcus Smart sat down. He’s been the leader of this franchise for years, the compass that guides them when they’re lost.
He’s seen his teammates get tired, hesitant, and even scared at times in this series. After Miami spent the first 3.5 games making the Celtics uncomfortable, seeing Brown stuck in that corner, it was time to flip the script and fight back.
“(I’m) just telling them to keep going. This is a pivotal point for us right now,” Smart said, after the Celtics’ 116-99 win in Game 4. “We’ve got to step it up a little bit. If you’re tired, out of the game. Get somebody else in there that’s fresh and that can keep it going. But we’ve got to keep going and do whatever it takes to win this game tonight.
As they walked back to the court, Mazzulla put the ball in Smart’s hands. If he leads the offense, as Tatum and Brown are still struggling to find their way, it will be up to him to turn things around.
Smart started slowly getting the ball to Jaylen Brown to run the same play they’ve seen fail a million times. But suddenly, Smart turned Jimmy Butler and burst into the lane. He kicked it to Al Horford who hit it to Derrick White and the Heat didn’t even bother to compete. On the next play, Horford stripped Max Strus as Brown and Tatum sprinted past Butler to take the lead and never looked back.
Everything about what this team does and how they play has changed from that moment. The key change in the third quarter was finally running shooters off the line, something The Athletic broke down before Game 4. Caleb Martin continued to burn them in the first half, so they decided it was time to close for good and change his sense of rhythm.
“This team beats you by playing harder than you and knocking down those three and opportunities,” Grant Williams said. “So we’ve got to keep our resilience, keep our perspective just understanding that no matter what happens, just make that extra effort.”
Miami prefers those soft closeouts by Martin because he was successful in getting the little bomb fake 3 he buried in Game 3. The Heat’s shooters are conditioned to lock on the rim and launch with confidence while the a defender beckons them.
It’s time for the Celtics to take the first chance and send another contest to ensure Miami’s floor spacers need to be playmakers. That’s when their offense started to fold and Boston got easier.
leading in the second half 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/gEeI3bvDdu
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) May 24, 2023
“That’s right. We brought the pressure to them,” said Smart. “We didn’t play on our back foot, like we did in this series. We were the aggressor on both ends, and we wanted to continue that. When we started getting those guys off the three and making them to make plays, everybody just does a good job of rotating and helping each other, and then that allows us to get out and run.
This is the formula Mazzulla preaches, whether the team succeeds or struggles this year. After players reveled in their defensive collapse this week, the second half of Game 4 showed what the defense has meant for years.
“I think today was our best game defensively, how we moved, how we rotated,” Jayson Tatum said. “We try to make guys uncomfortable, and we’re just there for each other. It’s not perfect. You’re going to lose. You’re going to hit a bomb fake. But it just felt like we all connected, especially in the second half defending, just rotating, assisting, things like that.
After Malcolm Brogdon said on Monday that the Celtics’ defensive identity had disappeared, Mazzulla said that their connectivity was never lost in Game 4. By going all-out to stop the ball, everyone knew they had to follow through and then recover. . There is no doubt.
“Their backs are against the wall, so you know they’re going to play with desperation,” Bam Adebayo said. “They’re going to try to find ways to disrupt our flow of the game. But the biggest thing about us, we know we have to fight back.”
Then the Celtics got smarter on the offensive end. They can only create more turnover opportunities, but they need to identify which parts of their offense aren’t working and redirect them elsewhere.
Brown’s shot isn’t there yet, but at least he accepted that in the second half. There was a key moment when he denied another baseline pull-up and kicked the ball to a shooter for an easy assist. After spending the first half trying to score over traffic and ignoring his shooters again, it’s nice to see Brown using his threat as a scorer to make an easy pass.
“Smart was in my ear, letting me know where the play was,” Brown said. “Just keep being aggressive, keep making the right plays. You don’t always have to put the ball in the basket; that helped us win tonight. So just keep making the right plays, and the game will open up for you, and that’s what Smart did is just be a leader, be vocal, and we found a way to win.”
Boston struggled a lot in Miami’s zone because the Celtics only looked at two lanes for the most part. Draw a trap and lob it over the top into a roller, or swing it to get a shooter in the corner. But Boston is struggling to hit those corner 3s, so they need to find a better way to get the ball from there. That’s where Brown came in.
“Yeah, the way they play defense, the way they play zone, the way they try to hide the matchups, they try to make sure they keep their main defenders and try to hide their little ones defender,” Brown said. “It took us a little time to figure it out. It’s not always normal that you score the ball because they don’t guard us normally.
After Brown made the play, Tatum found his tempo on his shot. He attacks early on the clock while his teammates are still preparing, hindering Miami’s ability to trap him and force him into an awkward shot or turnover. Those floaters in the lane gave him the confidence to start burying pull-up 3s and it all snowballed from there.
“Good scorers, they’ll figure it out at some point. You have to try to make it as tough as possible,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said of Tatum. “He’s got some good, clean looks. , in transition, open 3s, things at the end of possession. But there is no easy way, especially when you get to this point. You don’t expect a great player like Tatum to have so many off-nights. You have to do things more than this. “
Tatum’s back, Brown seems to be looking for some kind of offensive role, and Miami is on the back foot. The Heat will look for some changes to counter Boston’s aggressive struggles and show more discipline after Horford, White, and Grant Williams are back now that they are back in the rhythm of shooting the ball.
It’s a critical change at the right time, but Mazzulla can’t call a timeout every time he sees a mistake. The idea of an 0-3 comeback seemed unlikely coming into the game, but the Celtics showed up after the timeout looking like they could waltz into the NBA Finals. Boston has rarely shown the ability to get things done consistently, but something was off the hook in them in Game 4.
“We want to go back to Miami,” Brown said. “When that happens, I feel like we feel good about ourselves. The next one should be fun. It should be a big one, and we should be ready to play.
(Top photo by Marcus Smart: Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
