BOSTON — In Game 6, as in Games 1 and 3 of this Eastern Conference finals series, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown couldn’t avoid the crowd, and this time responded with 11 combined turnovers.
The Celtics’ star duo combined to only take seven second-half shots, and even if Tatum was 3 for 4 to Brown’s dreary 0 for 3 over that stretch, neither was able to rescue the Celtics from the fury of a 47-point performance from Jimmy Butler. Each Celtic only took one shot in the fourth — Tatum made his — and were generally unable to make the necessary difference.
Over the first half of the season, when performances like this one were more commonplace, it was called a lack of poise. And that issue keeps popping up at the most inconvenient times, now with Sunday’s Game 7 in Miami set to determine whether the Celtics make their first NBA Finals appearance in 12 years.
“A lot has to do with our starts and having to play catch up the whole game,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said on Saturday of the poise problem. “We understood the situation Miami was in last night and didn’t play our best basketball in the first quarter defensively and offensively. Playing behind the eight ball most of the game. Although we got the lead late or tied it quite a few times, it felt like we were always in an uphill battle, shooting ourselves in the foot.
“We’d like to get off to better starts, put some pressure on the opponent when they’re in that situation, similar to what we did against Milwaukee in Game 7,” Udoka said. “That’s our mindset coming in. Obviously going into (Miami) we want to start better. We have confidence in going down there winning, too, but we have to get ourselves off to better starts, get ourselves easy baskets and not give them life early in the game.”
Udoka’s citing of Game 7 in the conference semifinals is illustrative of what can happen with this Celtics team. They have not lost consecutive games in the 2022 postseason, and came back from a 3-2 deficit to beat the Bucks with wins in Games 6 and 7. Though they swept the Nets in the first round, their combined winning margin was a plus-18.
For Udoka, these elements are all signs of resilience. If his team can move beyond the likes of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Giannis Antetokounmpo, it can survive the occasional Jimmy Butler outburst.
“First off we’ve been a resilient group, overcome a lot of things this year, just in general nothing has been easy, and that’s just how the season has gone,” Udoka said. “It’s almost like we have to take the harder route at times and put ourselves in that situation due to some of the things we’ve done in this series. Understand the big picture and what’s in front of us. We put ourselves in the opportunity to have two games to win one, and have to go finish it down in Miami now.”
Time Lord’s minutes
Though Rob Williams was mostly out of the lineup down the stretch, Udoka said it wasn’t because of the center’s tender left knee. Instead, it had more to do with how well Al Horford and the Celtics small lineup had done at closing the gap on Miami.
“With Rob, overall, he was playing solid, no doubt, but he was fine, it wasn’t anything physical,” Udoka said. “Now we tried to manage his minutes a little bit … we know he’s not 100 percent, he’s continued to push through that but, like I said, it’s game to game, playing a little bit more, feeling a little bit better, and we hope to have him, obviously, for Game 7.”
Getting the Jays back on track
Miami took Tatum and Brown out of Game 6 a little too well. But Udoka said that in the case of Tatum, in particular, the forward was making plays for others like Derrick White as the result of Miami pressure.
“They blitzed Jayson quite a few times in the second half, whether he was handling the ball, got it out of his hands and made other guys make plays,” Udoka said. “Derrick was going as well, and he had the lesser defender on him and he took advantage of that quite a few times, especially off the blitzes. Whenever Jayson got the ball in the middle, whether he was the screener or the recipient of a pass, they crowded him and took it out of his hands as well. Part of that is the turnovers. We had quite a few turnovers between those two guys. Overall Jayson had seven turnovers and Jaylen with four. Lot of those shot attempts we could have had, we turned it over playing in a crowd a little bit. Nothing we haven’t seen this year, Derrick had it going quite a bit. But also those guys trying to make the right play. Getting shots up as well as turnovers, other guys being the recipients and they made quite a few shots off of Jayson’s double teams.”
That said, the Celtics need the Tatum and Brown capable of taking over a game.
“Obviously, early in the game if they’re going after them, we encourage them to get off the ball and the defense will kind of break down and open up for them later in the game,” Udoka said. “Guys were making enough plays off the ball. But at the same time, we want those guys to stay aggressive at all times. Find their opportunities, and like I said, a lot of those we had some turnovers in the pocket. Passed up a few open shots and kind of drove into traffic, just encouraged them to be aggressive as far as that. Obviously, the number of field-goal attempts on their part was low for a half. Miami, that was their job, to try to take it out of their hands. But, like I said, Derrick had it going a little bit, but we always want to stay aggressive and make the right play. But at the same time, they are our scorers, they’re our leading scorers, and obviously in the fourth quarter, we need them to bring it home. So we gotta do a better job finding them, getting them the ball and putting them in spots knowing how the defense is guarding them.”
