Celtics identity crisis Jason Tatum injury spoils history as season winds down

BOSTON – After everything they’ve done to get to this point, the Celtics have suddenly pulled the rug out from under them. On the first play of Game 7, Jason Tatum sprained his ankle landing on Gabe Vincent’s foot, and he was never the same.

Vincent was sliding to the ground and was a split second away from missing Tatum. The margin between history and defeat was the width of a toe.

Celtics are used to this. Just before the season’s media day began in the fall, Ime Udoka was suspended and Joe Mazzulla was put in charge of a team ready to win it all. They surfed waves of inconsistency throughout the year, then weathered a torrential storm into the playoffs for a chance to be the first team in NBA history to come back from losing 0-3.

But with Tatum a fluke of himself, as he put it, it all slowly fell apart as they missed their first 12 three-pointers of the night and were never able to close the gap on the Heat living their identity to the fullest. The Celtics’ season ended, leaving history at the altar with a 103-84 Game 7 collapse at home in which they were unable to hold their ground for a full 48 minutes under the toughest conditions.

“It’s a pattern that’s happening with us. We’re going to have to do some soul-searching there because some things have to change in that regard,” Al Horford said. “We had a great opportunity and we failed.”

Tatum’s leg injury early in the game clearly sapped much of his explosiveness while Jaylen Brown could never find a rhythm attacking Miami defensive assist. The Browns’ dribbling swings and poor shooting choices continued to take the wind out of Boston’s sails, as well as complete stagnation across the board against Miami’s high-pressure defense.

Brown seemed at times to nurse his left wrist in the series, and that hand betrayed him in dribbling moves all night. But so did his decisions to drop for an ill-advised 3 second rather than trust an offensive system that seemed to be going nowhere.

This was the conundrum this team had always faced when they couldn’t break out in transitions or bury 3 to save their lives. What is their plan B?

“Yeah, it was just an awful game when my team needed me the most,” Brown said. “Like, JT hurt his ankle, the first play of the game, and you could see it like it bulged on him. He couldn’t move there. It was tough on him. My team turned to me to make plays and I fell through. It’s rough or rough. I give credit to Miami, but just awful work.” .

Rob Williams has been dealing with an illness since Monday morning, according to a league source, as has Brogdon – who confirmed it Athletic Informed that he may need surgery for his partially torn tendon in his arm – evidently too injured to play. The Celtics led 9-6 when Brogdon took the floor midway through the first quarter, then were down 27-12 by the time they walked out about seven minutes later.

The world could see Brogdon struggle to even pass the ball, but Mazzulla held on for a long time as the Celtics sank into a hole they couldn’t get out of. But they put themselves out there at the start of this series. The Celtics always take the hardest path to victory, and in the end they met their match against a team that fights for goal and contact more than anyone else in basketball.

“The hole we put ourselves in, it’s tough. It’s the same night,” Brogdon said of trying to come back from down 0-3. We couldn’t get out of the hole we created. I thought we showed how resilient we are, how good our team is, and partly got out of it. But wouldn’t you be able to finish it on your own floor? This is very frustrating.”

They found themselves there due to the lack of a clear identity. When they were down 0-3, players across the roster began to lament the lack of a defensive calling card that had characterized this team for years. They said defense wins championships, shooting comes and goes but you can always control the game by stopping. Then it all came to a head in Game 7.

“We just go out there and put our defense first. Don’t really worry about shots. Do-or-miss, defense is key,” said Marcus Smart. “Because even though you notice on shots, your defense can save you a lot of times. A lot of times our defense has been kryptonite when we’re not taking shots.”

They can’t control what happens when the ball leaves their hands. Smart and Derrick White, who sat together on the podium for the exit interview, were the only ones overall to reach the 3s. Brown shot 7-for-43 (16.2 percent) from deep in the series while Tatum was 11-for-47 (23.4 percent).

That just can’t be defended by two superstars which is why the Celtics defense always has to be elite for this team to have a chance.

“That was a game, whether we hit the ball or not if we stop, we can stay in that game,” said Brogdon. “This isn’t a team that’s going to score 120 points. It’s not a team that’s going to come out in transition and beat you like that. They’re going to slow the game down and play in the half court. So if we can get stops, it’s a game we can stay in, even if we don’t make the shots. But really The thing is, we just didn’t stop. This was ultimately our death.”

In the words of Tatum, the offense fluctuates, but the defense can always maintain it.

The problem is that this team has let its struggles on one side feed off of each other. Boston wants to play at a high pace and shoot a 3-second transition, which naturally fits into the principles of the modern NBA. The Celtics talk about ball movement and player movement, as the free attack is based on confidence.

But when Horford was getting the ball on a short lap throughout Game 7, the spacing around him was playing glancing behind the Miami defense. The offense is to read and respond, but that makes it difficult to maintain creativity in high-pressure environments and create the kind of challenging action that Miami’s offense thrives on.

There is no sense of direction at times – which is not a new concept for this team – and this leads to tougher shots and more fractures.

“When we don’t play well offensively and the shots don’t fall, I think we lose confidence,” said Brogdon. “I think that’s the way the game works. But I think we’ve lost confidence and it shows, and then we have more meltdowns in defense because we don’t take shots because we stop moving the ball.”

When Mazzulla came out after the loss, he had little interest in diving into what just happened. He would answer questions in one or two brief sentences, even answering a question about whether the Celtics relied too much on the 3-point shot for the umpteenth time this season with “No.”

As his press conference went on, a lot of things were tied to that bug, and “that’s it.” Many coaches use these moments to delve into detail about their players and why their best laid plans were thwarted, but he said they’ve been tough and involved all season, and now they just have to learn. Brown was at least willing to put his feelings out there and show the world why thinking in the moment is such a struggle.

“I mean, we screwed up. It’s hard to pull anything else out of this situation,” Brown said. “But it’s been a blessing to play basketball up to this point, one game of the Finals. It stings unbelievably and it’s hard to even be here and talk about it.”

Usually this is the time for the coach to establish his control over the situation and exude confidence, but Mazzola objected. But as Horford said, seeing the forest through the trees and getting answers to what went wrong can be a challenge in times like these.

“We didn’t succeed. We failed because we wanted to win the championship,” Horford said. “That was our goal. But even so, I’m very proud of that group because there was no excuse. We had our ups and downs, but we stuck with it. So now I feel like we want solutions and sometimes you have to step back and look at work and that’s not going to happen now in the heat of the moment.”

Just like last season, they met a team with a cohesive identity and Boston’s fight and talent just wasn’t enough. But the context for their failure comes in light of the MVP being injured early in the night. A knife edge between champions and failure was the sole of Gabe Vincent’s sneakers.

Would they have won this match and gone on to win the title if Tatum had been healthy? Who do you know.

But Tatum was there and he could have been more impactful if this team could dig into his identity and find the defensive intensity and offensive creativity that brought him back from the dead last week.

Instead, they looked like a team that was lost when the shots didn’t land.

“All I can say is give credit to the group we had this season. Give credit to the coaching staff we had this season,” Brown said. “We had a lot of ups and downs, we had a lot of things going on internally, etc. that. We fought. We fought our way back from losing 3-0 and got to this position. And we came to shortcomings. “

(Photo of Jason Tatum after spraining his ankle during the first quarter of Game 7: Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)