As Game 1 hit its most critical moments on Monday night, two offensive plays inside the final minute cost the Celtics in their stunning loss to the 76ers. They carried the same theme.
The Celtics led by one as the clock ticked under 45 seconds when they had their worst possession of the game. They made five passes and couldn’t find a clean look. It ended when Malcolm Brogdon inexplicably threw a pass straight to Tyrese Maxey as the shot clock expired before the 76ers guard scored a breakaway, go-ahead layup.
Two possessions later – after James Harden’s ultimately game-winning 3-pointer – Marcus Smart drove to the basket and tried to find Jayson Tatum underneath, but lost the ball for his sixth turnover. The Sixers then sealed the game at the free-throw line.
“Our spacing just got the best of us there,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.
A day after the loss, the Celtics continued to process and digest what went wrong. Offensively, those two plays summarized the difference. While the Celtics started hot, they faded late. They committed 16 turnovers. Both Mazzulla and Derrick White acknowledged they had trouble with Philadelphia’s physicality. But it all came down to what Mazzulla has preached all season, what he thinks the greatest strength of his team is.
“Spacing, execution, making open shots, making quick decisions,” Mazzulla said.
Mazzulla said the turnovers were a product of the spacing – or lack thereof.
“We just have to fight for our spacing,” Mazzulla said. “They do a great job of being in shifts. I thought their switching at times slowed us down. As later in the game, the defenses get more physical and so the offense, you have to fight for your physicality, you have to fight to not get slowed down and bogged down by their switching.”
The Celtics did a good job with that early, when they had their way with Joel Embiid-less 76ers on the interior. They made 17 of their first 20 shots, and scored 40 points in the paint in the first half. But Mazzulla was unhappy that they only took 26 3-point attempts, their fewest in a game this season. All season, he has preached the importance of 3-pointers, but the Sixers took 12 more attempts and made seven more.
Mazzulla thought there was a correlation between the Celtics’ early success inside and their lack of 3-point shooting.
“I think we got into the paint at will in the first quarter, and that kind of gave us the sense of we can get there and do it all the time,” Mazzulla said. “I think we did a good job of adjusting to the shifts and going zone. Sometimes when you get into the comfort level of we can get to the paint whenever we want, we can do it over and over again. I think it’s important to know we have to find that balance of getting into the paint and making the right play. At the same time, we have to shoot open 3s.”
Other leftover takeaways from Game 1:
– While Harden took off for a playoff career-high 45 points, the Celtics were still encouraged that they defended him without fouling, as he only shot four free throws. But they acknowledged they can improve in making it harder on the point guard in his 3-point shot-making after he drilled seven triples, including the game-winner.
“I know he got to his step back a little bit, he was a little bit comfortable there,” Mazzulla said. “I think we can do a better job of recognizing our shift activity, knowing who we can help off of and who we can’t.”
White recognized Harden’s greatness as he made several tough shots, but that the Celtics will continue to throw different looks at him in an attempt to throw him off rhythm.
“A little bit of everything,” White said. “I think that’s what we do most of the year is just kind of mix it up from possession to possession, try to throw him off. He’s seen everything so we just try to make it difficult for him.”
– While the Celtics lost grasp of home-court advantage in this series with their Game 1 loss, they’re not putting any extra pressure on themselves for Game 2. Their core has been resilient over the last few seasons, and will continue to rely on that.
“I think our guys have been in this situation a lot,” Mazzulla said. “I think the most important thing is understanding what we have to do better and do it for longer stretches of the game. And we just have to have the mindset of, like, when we’re at our best this is what we do. And we’ve gotta stick to it for longer stretches.”
– With 5:04 left in the fourth quarter, Tatum took an inadvertent shot to the groin from P.J. Tucker after he found Malcolm Brogdon for a go-ahead layup on a fast break. Tatum was on the ground in pain for several moments before making a brief exit from the game, and Marcus Smart had some words with the 76ers players after the sequence.
The play, however, was not reviewed for a possible flagrant foul despite the Celtics’ hope for one.
“They said they couldn’t review it just because we wanted to,” Mazzulla said.
“That’s just what we were told, is you can’t review something just because you want it reviewed so I guess they didn’t see it.”
Was Tatum being on the ground not enough to warrant a review?
“I’m just here so I don’t get fined,” Mazzulla cracked.