When the Celtics returned to the Auerbach Center on Thursday to review the film from their Game 1 loss to the Heat, nothing surprised them.
“It was pretty much what I thought,” Joe Mazzulla said.
“It looked exactly like it looked last night,” Robert Williams added. “Long film session. Not much more to say.”
It was ugly. After holding a double-digit lead early in the third quarter, the Celtics let go of the rope. The Heat surged with a 46-point period to take control. Almost everything went wrong for the Celtics, who lost their sense of urgency and purpose, and it reflected in every part of their play.
This has been a theme for the Celtics, who are unbeatable and dominant for stretches but have trouble staying consistent and locking in for a full 48 minutes. It’s cost them plenty of times this season. It’s alarming that it continues to happen at this stage of the season, in the most important games.
“We get tired of doing the little things sometimes,” Marcus Smart said after the loss.
“We’ve got to make sure we do those little things, and we can’t get bored with those, and we’ve got to realize what has got us the lead or what was working for us.”
Mazzulla saw parallels between what happened on Wednesday and in Game 1 of the 76ers series, when the Celtics held a 12-point lead late in the first half before letting their opponent find some momentum. The Heat trailed by nine at halftime on Wednesday, but Mazzulla thought the way they ended the half was significant.
“It happens before you even stop to think that it’s happening, and in both games it’s been that way where we’re up 13, we build a good lead, and with two minutes to go in the quarter we kind of give a team life,” Mazzulla said. “So that’s why end of quarter, start of quarters, and just executing is so important.”
On Wednesday, it snowballed to absurd levels. The Celtics lost sight of the details that are required, especially against a team like the Heat.
“You can’t take the simple things for granted, no matter the stakes, no matter the importance or the game or the series or the situation that we’re in,” Mazzulla said.
The Celtics are confident they’ll respond in Friday’s Game 2 like they have so many times after tough losses, but even they acknowledge that this pattern of only playing with urgency when absolutely needed has become a problem.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll come out ready to play in Game 2 but the problem is we can’t keep relying on that,” Williams said. “Go back to the culpability thing. We can’t rely on our backs being against the wall. … We have to fix it.”
Payton Pritchard had only played significant minutes in two games during this run – Game 2 against the Sixers in garbage time, Game 5 against the Sixers when the C’s were searching for a spark – but Mazzulla saw the guard as part of the game plan against the Heat. Pritchard was the eighth man off the bench in Game 1 and played 12 minutes, but was a non-factor after missing both shots he took.
“I liked his shooting, I liked his aggressiveness. I like his ability to change the momentum and the energy of the game,” Mazzulla said of the decision to play Pritchard. “I think he brings a level of physicality in our pick-and-roll defense, which is important in this series. So I just think he’s able to do all of those things.”
Grant Williams did not play for a fifth time during these playoffs as his role continues to diminish. Williams played 30.4 minutes per game in all seven against the Heat in last season’s Eastern Conference Finals, but it’s unclear if he’ll play a factor in the rematch.
“We have a plan to use the depth we need in order to give us the lineups we think can really help us and obviously in the playoffs when minutes are expanding you look to play seven or eight guys throughout and I think at the start Payton gave us an opportunity with his shooting, his playmaking and his pick-and roll-defense,” Mazzulla said. “Like we said before, Grant is always gonna be ready, and we’ve built a lot of versatility in our lineup where we can go a lot of different ways. We trust that anybody we call on will be ready.”
The Celtics were in the same position after last season’s Game 1 that unfolded similarly, when they held a double-digit first-half lead before the Heat reeled off a 39-14 third quarter en route to a victory. But that doesn’t exactly put them at ease this year.
“Last year was last year,” Derrick White said. “This is a different year, different team.”
White missed Game 2 last season because of the birth of his son Hendrix. This year, his son’s birthday will also come on the day of Game 2.
“That’s the deja vu I’m happy about,” White said.
Mazzulla typically judges how well the Celtics offense plays by the number of 3-point attempts they put up. They were second in the NBA this season with 42.6 3-point attempts per game. But they only took 29 in Wednesday’s loss, which he said was a product of several factors on both ends.
“You take a look at how we got them,” Mazzulla said. “When we get stops and are able to get out in transition, we’re able to get those. They switched defenses and switched more in the second half, and switching defenses slow you down and you have to fight for your spacing, fight for advantages. You have to fight to create separation, and so being able to make the adjustment on how we play versus one defense versus a switching defense is important.
“So we just have to fight for that and we can generate those threes by creating separation, by creating advantages.”