MIAMI — In the wake of Tuesday night’s Game 1 loss, they sounded like a football team.
Whether it was Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown or the coach, Ime Udoka, they all had to look at the “film.”
A day later after getting together at the team hotel, the damage was fairly self-explanatory — the wrong end of a 39-14 third quarter, including only two field goals, five second-half assists after 17 in the first half, and those eight third-quarter turnovers, including six from Tatum.
And, above all, just about anything Jimmy Butler did to disrupt the Celtics.
“Just be smarter. To put a guy on the line 18 times, just got to play smarter,” Daniel Theis said of Butler’s ability to shoot 17 for 18 from the line as a big part of his 41-point performance. “We know he’s a big shot-fake guy, so all of us, we have a scouting unit, at a time, just got to be smarter and put the hands back and just make him make tough shots. Like he had some tough shots he made, can shake his hand, but can’t bail him out and put him on the free-throw line that many times. Because he’s a great free-throw shooter, that’s easy points right there, gets him a rhythm. So we got to stay away from that.”
But the Celtics feel they also have two encouraging reference points. They responded well after losing Game 1 of the conference semifinals to Milwaukee in TD Garden. And that 39-14 eyesore aside, they had otherwise played well, including as the better team in the first half.
“We have a lot of confidence in our group. But, on the other hand, it’s also, we won three out of four quarters yesterday. We just had the third quarter killed us,” said Theis. “We gave up 40 points and we had eight turnovers in the quarter. That’s more convincing for us that we can beat this team. We just have to play a full game. It’s kind of similar to Milwaukee in a way. They want to score off offensive rebounds and turnovers because our half-court defense is great. But like I said, the third quarter killed us. Turnovers, bad shots.”
There’s also a chance they’ll miss Marcus Smart (right foot sprain; probable) and Al Horford (health and safety protocol; doubtful) for Thursday night’s Game 2 as well. The absence of both players was clearly evident in Game 1.
“Obviously we weren’t prepared for playing without Al,” said Theis. “Just surprised right before the game to find out he’s not playing. It’s next man up when somebody is out. Next man up, and you saw that in the first half. First half, we played great. Second half, the Heat adjusted, packed the paint, we took a lot of contested jump shots, turned the ball over a lot, and so it changed the game for them.”
Rob Williams was on the floor for much of that damage.
“It just has to be a team effort,” Theis said. “We take pride on defense, obviously, and the biggest thing with that is helping each other, realizing it’s not one guy out there to guard. There’s defensive tendency and there’s rebounding tendency, so just a team effort.”
“Obviously it’s tough losing any teammates, especially our two starters, but it’s a next-man-up mentality,” said Williams. “And it doesn’t really worry me because my guys, they know how to fight. And even if this starts with me or other people just stepping up and taking on that defensive presence or leading the physicality presence, whatever we gotta do to step it up a notch.”
Time Lord’s progress
Viewers may have been alarmed by the site of a hobbled Rob Williams having his surgically repaired left knee rubbed down by teammate Grant Williams. But the former said he merely had a cramp this time around that needed tending to. After missing the last four games of the Milwaukee series due to recurring pain and swelling in the knee — he was available for the Celtics’ Game 7 win over the Bucks — Williams said he wasn’t restricted Tuesday night save for the cramp.
He finished with 18 points and nine rebounds in 29 minutes.
“I was trying to get up and just (told) them I was cramping. So, like I said, basically fatigue. For Game 7 last series, I wasn’t all the way ready, but I just told Ime I could give you something,” he said. “If you need to throw me in there for a jump ball or something, I feel like I can give you something. It was just being cautious. Thankfully we got through that round, but we gotta handle business now.
“But other than that, I’m straight ready to roll,” he said. “It’s always next-man-up mentality. We’ve been going through that all year — in the beginning of the year starting with COVID, throughout the whole year dealing with injuries. As far as myself and other players, that goes back to the adversity side, we feel like we’ve done a good job stepping up. So, next man up.”
Shoring up the glass
The Heat created more opportunities with nine offensive rebounds.
“We need all five of us,” Theis said of team rebounding responsibilities. “It can’t just be the bigs or guards. We need all five to go in there and get the rebounds. Beginning of the third, we had multiple stops, but we couldn’t finish the possession getting the rebound and they got threes out of it. It’s a whole team thing. It’s not just one, two or three guys. Everybody has to box out and get in there and get the ball.”
