They showed they learned lessons
Joe Mazzulla didn’t panic after that painful, frustrating December loss in San Francisco. While the Celtics lost in overtime, chucked 58 3-pointers, and committed several defensive miscues, the against-the-grain coach walked away encouraged.
The consensus from the coaching staff after that game was a revelation that wasn’t the case in their previous meetings, especially in the NBA Finals.
“They can’t guard us,” was the collective message the Celtics walked away with after that defeat against the Warriors. The Warriors can shoot threes with the best of them, Stephen Curry can dazzle with his casual 35-footers, Draymond
Green may still intimidate in certain moments, but “they can’t guard us.”
So Sunday’s rematch at TD Garden was an opportunity for the Celtics to exorcise demons on a national stage, pummel a team that has gotten the best of them in recent years, won the final three games of the Finals two years ago, and celebrated their fourth championship in eight years on the Garden floor.
Yet, so much has changed in 21 months.
Curry remains one of the best players on Earth but the supporting cast has declined considerably. Klay Thompson is having his worst season and his Golden State future is cloudy. Green is more bark than bite as he approaches his mid-30s. Andre Iguodala, the other part of the quartet to win four titles, watched the game from the stands as executive director of the players association. He retired before the season.
The motivated Celtics allowed the Warriors to hang around for exactly six minutes before a
dominating 21-1 quarter-ending run essentially determined the outcome in Boston’s 140-88 romp.
Mazzulla was right. The Warriors couldn’t stop the Celtics, regardless of how many junk defenses they unleashed, including the bizarre let-AllStar-Jaylen-Brown-shoot-open-jumpers strategy.
Brown took that personally, as he should have, scoring 19 points in the first period. Jayson Tatum took over in the second period and suddenly the Celtics were up by 40.
Sending statements in regular-season games is overrated, especially to a team that’s built a dynasty, but the Celtics needed this victory in the worst way. They needed to know as much as they’ve improved, as many games as they are ahead by in the Eastern Conference, the adjustments they’ve made since those ’22 Finals were good enough to steamroll the Warriors, a team that had no fear of them and felt their 11thhour defensive scheme against Brown would work.
The Warriors couldn’t guard the Celtics.
“It feels great but at the same time it’s always within humility,” said Brown, who scored 29 points in 22 minutes and added stifling defense on Curry. “Any given point that could be us and we don’t take the game for granted. We didn’t come out and mess around. That’s just how we show our respect to the game is that we handle business and take care of it, but we don’t do it arrogantly. We do it with humility.
“There’s a lot of respect for the Golden State Warriors. But we feel like it’s our time now.”
The Celtics were erratic and mistakefilled in that Dec. 19 loss at Chase Center, missing 41 3-pointers, getting no field goals from Tatum or Brown in the fourth quarter, and trying too hard to force Curry into a sixth foul, botching their offensive rhythm.
But Mazzulla felt the Celtics would have easily won without those miscues. He felt for the first time since he’s been in Boston, the Celtics could score on the Warriors on every possession. Of course that’s not going to happen, but they felt good enough about their approach to know the resistance had subsided.
“What I was excited about in that game against Golden State is a process toward building an identity,” Mazzulla said. “We did it in multiple games up until that point. I was very encouraged about the way we were able to attack them on the offensive end. I was encouraged with the way we played for those 2½ quarters. I thought we did a great job of guarding them and attacking them. Keeping that as an identity of knowing how to manage games, how to manage runs is something we talk about a lot.
“I think the guys have grown in identity as far as game management and I think that game really exploited that for us and it’s something we tried to work on.”
So while most viewed it as a painful loss, Mazzulla viewed it as a building block that could benefit his team in the long run. The Celtics have won 11 consecutive games and lead the league in several offensive categories. At this point they’re searching for motivations until the playoffs began. One motivation is atoning for past shortcomings, overcoming opponents such as Miami and Golden State. So Sunday could be considered a bigger victory than normal because the Warriors owned the Celtics psychologically until this flawless performance.
The Celtics knew they couldn’t be guarded, and when the Warriors began the game with that funky, disregarding defense against Brown, it was apparent they were fishing for gimmicks to rattle their once-fragile opponent. It backfired and Golden State coach Steve Kerr didn’t bother to play Curry, Thompson, or Green in the second half. He threw in the towel and the Celtics finally overcame a mental barrier that had been plaguing them for nearly two years.
“I’m sure they thought that’s what their best chance was, whoever came up with that defensive kind of concept,” Brown said. “The Golden State Warriors have been the best team in basketball over the last 10-plus years. Nothing but respect on our behalf. I think that’s exactly how you show it, is you come out and play hard and compete and that’s what we did from the tip.”