Tim BontempsESPNM May 24, 2023 12:45 AM ET4 minutes read
MIAMI — During Tuesday morning’s shootaround before Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Marcus Smart had a message for the Miami Heat:
“Let’s not get one,” Smart said. “Let’s just not get one.”
That was quite a statement considering the Celtics went into Game 4 with a 3-0 hole in that best-of-7 series — a deficit that 150 teams throughout NBA history have faced and none of them had successfully recovered from.
But a few hours later, Smart and the Celtics made good on their end of the bargain and clinched a 116-99 win over Miami. That brought that series back to Boston for Thursday’s Game 5, with the Celtics now three more wins away from history.
“Now we just have to win again,” said Smart after recording 11 points and six assists in 35 minutes. “Nothing else matters. We play one game at a time. We understand the odds are against us but we’re a team that believes in us no matter what and we just have to keep going and stuff.” What matters is the next game.
Boston found themselves in a 3-0 gap going into Game 4 because they were repeatedly unable to weather adverse situations. The Celtics collapsed on the track in Games 1 and 2 and then got thrown out of the Kaseya Center in Game 3.
Game 4, however, was a very different story. Boston was nine points behind late in the first quarter after a 3-pointer from Caleb Martin. The Celtics were again nine points behind early in the third quarter after a 3-point throw from Max Strus 90 seconds into the second half. And then, after missing the first four shots and committing three fouls in the first 2:19 of the fourth quarter, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla allowed himself a short time-out, the Celtics led 88-83 and the game was on a razor’s edge .
But in each of those situations, Boston responded. The Celtics ran 17-5 after the Martin triple and took the lead early in the second quarter. After Strus’ 3-point shot, Boston went on an 18-0 run for more than four minutes in the third round. And after that timeout from Mazzulla early in the fourth quarter, Boston netted a shot from Jayson Tatum the following play – Tatum’s first field goal of the series in the fourth quarter – and started a 12-0 run that ended the game for good.
“I think that attitude, that mutual trust, that connectivity during a game, no matter how the game was going, that never waned,” Mazzulla said. “Listen, when the stakes are really high and you’re trying to achieve what we want to achieve, it’s easy to lose those things because the guys are playing as hard as they can.”
“I just thought that regardless of the result, the guys just stuck together.”
Part of the reason Boston was able to hold together, according to Jaylen Brown, was the talks the team had as a group during the day Monday after the Celtics suffered a demoralizing loss in Game 3 that brought them to the brink of elimination.
“Just get together and say it all,” Brown said. “And like so often, when you’re 3-0 down at that point, you see the dressing rooms and teams going the other way. We want to make sure we stay together. We wanted to make sure we looked good in each other’s eyes and came out today and did our best and I’m proud of our group for pulling it off because you see teams that have their backs to the wall , and then you see them just collapse.
“You didn’t see that tonight. You could see how we came together, defended, made the right plays and I feel like that says a lot about our character, especially in a game where everything is at stake and everything has gone wrong in the last few games.
It also didn’t hurt that the Celtics – and Tatum in particular – threw up some shots. Boston had gone into this game with a batting average of 31 to 106 (29.2 percent) from 3-point range in the first three games, compared to 44 to 92 (47.8 percent) for Miami.
“I still think we can shoot the ball a lot better,” said Brown, who had 16 points despite struggling again from long range and playing 5-1 behind the arch. “I think I had a couple of good shots that didn’t go in but tomorrow the next game is a new game. We will feel good.”
Tatum, on the other hand, ran 11-of-15 in the second half, scoring 25 points and committing just one loss after recording eight points and four losses in the first half.
Tatum picked up 14 of Boston’s 38 points in the third, helping the Celtics lead 38-23 in the heat, turning a six-point deficit into a nine-point lead at halftime. After that timeout early in the fourth quarter, he then came back into the game and elbowed off a game-winning Boston run.
“They played in the zone and to be honest we kind of struggled with the zone in the first few games,” Tatum said of Miami’s defense early in the fourth quarter as the Heat kept the Celtics scoreless for over two minutes with Tatum on the bench. “So we kind of stagnated. When I came back he just designed a play to create some movement, find space and then make the right play.”
Now that that series is moving back to Boston, the Celtics have at least taken the first step in making history.
The next one will take another 48 minutes, like this one on a Thursday in Boston.
“We want to return to Miami,” Brown said.