BOSTON — After the Boston Celtics’ January 28 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, Joe Mazzulla called it “a bad day at the office.” If that game was just a bad day at the office, Friday night’s game against the Miami Heat was enough to get the Celtics fired from their corporate job.
They shot just 1-of-20 from the field in the first half. For those counting at home, that’s five percent.
And since they couldn’t buy a bucket on the offensive end, the Heat were free to run in transition. They capitalized on Boston’s offensive misfortune with pull-up threes and easy mismatches.
Nothing went right for Boston through the first two quarters. Neemias Queta and Payton Pritchard both missed layups, Dru Smith made an insane floater against tough defense in the lane, and Jaylen Brown was limping at one point.
Mazzulla rolled out double bigs to start the game (Queta and Luka Garza), but quickly went away from it when the offense struggled. Nikola Vucevic, who made his Celtics debut, helped boost the offense with his passing, but he struggled to keep up in Boston’s fast-paced defensive system.
Then, everything flipped.
It was as if the Celtics woke up from a nap and decided that they were ready to hoop in the third quarter.
Pritchard caught fire. Deep three after deep three, he changed the game. Vucevic was a constant mismatch threat. It got so bad that the Heat stopped switching for a few possessions, but Pritchard simply took advantage of the space Vucevic’s screen attempt created. And when Miami did switch, Vucevic bullied whoever matched up against in the post.
The Celtics, led by Pritchard (nine points), Vucevic (eight points), and a red-hot Derrick White (eight points), willed Boston back into the ball game. They won the third 36-15.
So, when the fourth quarter came around, it was a tie ball game.
And Pritchard wasn’t done heating up.
The NBA’s isolation king absolutely tormented whoever the Heat decided to put in front of him. And on defense, he checked Norman Powell. That’s first-time All-Star, Norman Powell.
Everything came down to the final few minutes. Boston and Miami went back and forth. Andrew Wiggins buckets. Pritchard, White, and Brown buckets. And it all came down to one final possession for the Heat.
Down 98-96, the Heat went to Wiggins. He drove into the paint, drew two, and kicked the ball out to a wide-open Davion Mitchell in the corner.
Boston walked away with a two-point, grind-it-out victory. And TD Garden went nuts.
Big winner: There is no world where Pritchard isn’t the biggest winner of this game. He was the best player on the floor in the second half by a wide, wide margin.
It was a master class in how to score the basketball. It didn’t matter who was in front of him: Pritchard saw red.
And that was true on both ends of the court. Defensively, he clamped Powell. The energy of his offensive surge, combined with the roar of TD Garden, turned him into a lockdown defender.
Ouch, tough one: There was a point in this game when the Celtics’ only offense consisted of tough Brown buckets. He was crucial during that stretch.
And in the fourth quarter, he found (a small) rhythm again.
But for most of this game, Brown was off. It wasn’t a huge coincidence that the Celtics’ comeback happened when he was on the bench.
It looked like Brown may have tweaked something in the first half. He was limping. But regardless, this wasn’t Brown’s night.
The big picture: How many ways can a person write, ‘This team is always going to fight.’
It was the big picture after Boston’s win over the Houston Rockets. It’s been the big picture of the entire season. There’s just something about this Celtics team. They never give in, they never give up, and they absolutely refuse to stop hustling.
Win or lose, these Celtics are going to leave every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears on the hardwood. And that’s an easy team to root for.
