LEGACY ON THE LINE FOR C’S IN GAME 6
Only one opponent has ever won title on Garden floor
Robert Williams, on the eve of an elimination NBA Finals game, was asked about his team’s legacy, as opposed to the 17 Celtics teams that went on before him to win the title.
“As far as a legacy goes, I’m just trying to win the next game,” said the Celtics center. “Possession by possession, that’s the biggest thing for us right now.”
Possession by possession, for two straight games, was the challenge that awaited the Celtics heading into Thursday night’s Game 6.
The Garden crowd has done its job throughout, annoying the Warriors to a starkly motivational degree.
The Celtics had an additional challenge, preventing Golden State from becoming only the second opponent in franchise history to win a title on the Garden floor. The Lakers pulled that feat off in 1985.
“It’s great being back home. It’s the last home game of the season,” said Jayson Tatum. “Looking forward to being in front of the crowd, knowing that they’re going to be behind us and giving us that extra boost of energy, as they have my whole career. I’m extremely excited to see them tomorrow. It’s going to be extremely loud in here. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a great atmosphere. Looking forward to that.”
And Thursday night, the message from the crowd was simple enough.
“When you’re in Boston, when you come to Boston, that’s the expectation,” Al Horford said of championships. “That’s the norm. I know that, obviously, for many years we were never in this stage. But that’s something that’s already in. As soon as you put this uniform on, it’s something that is expected. We’re aware of that. We want to be part of that history, no question.”
Managing minutes
With most in the Celtics realm admitting to fatigue down the stretch of their Game 5 loss, Ime
Udoka went into Game 6 looking for a way to manage minutes without diluting the product on the floor.
“You’d like to keep them fresh obviously for the fourth quarter, and a big part of that was the success we had in the third with that group, and played them a little bit longer and getting back in the game and taking the lead there,” said the Celtics coach. “Then the bench production wasn’t the same. As we started out the fourth poorly, we got our guys back in quicker than we’d like to. We don’t expect a lack of production like that again off the bench, so keep the guys in their natural rotation, keep their minutes down, and they will be
fresh for the end.”
As with everything else in this league, there’s a science behind the decisions.
“We have something we like to look at rotationwise with the coaching staff,” said Udoka. “Obviously, we have the timeouts to discuss, who has been in for certain stretches or not and who is playing well in what rotations. We have two or three that we go over every day, and kind of look at those, and then obviously have to have a feel
for the game as well. And so depending how lineups are playing, rotations and matchups, we can kind of tweak those. But we have a few different scenarios that we go over but have to have the natural feel of the game, how it’s flowing.” Time Lord’s travails As Udoka has discovered, Robert Williams has actually responded well to a measured approach to playing time, and his sore left knee.
“It’s a pretty easy thing to see when he’s feeling good and has a bounce in his step and whether he tweaked something or is kind of limping around
out there,” said Udoka. “That’s pretty easy to see. For him it’s not a matter of any minute restriction, it’s just what we’re conscious of and not running him longer stretches.
“For him, if he’s looking good and feeling good and that unit is playing well, he has no problem staying out there. Nothing that needs to be done as far as minutes, but we do want to have him with certain rotations, and that splits up his rotations in the minutes more so and we can get him in and out on quicker stretches instead of running longer nine or 10-minute ones.”