The Celtics have yet another dead end with no obvious way out. This Time Against Miami, a squad hoping to win an NBA title was defeated. New contracts and tough decisions are ahead.
The Boston Celtics’ Jekyll and Hyde routine came to an end on Monday night.
150 NBA teams attempted, but were unable, to come back from a 3-0 series deficit. After losing to the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Celtics’ record against them was 151. Miami triumphed easily, 103-84, in the series finale, which featured frequent shifts in momentum. The team was ahead by double digits for the majority of the game. Boston lost its third straight game at home in the series, which was extremely disappointing for a team that had made it to the NBA Finals the previous year and was hoping to make a run at it.
After the game, a dejected Jaylen Brown told reporters, “We failed, I failed.” “We failed the entire city,”
The Celtics fluctuated between looking like an unstoppable offensive juggernaut (Games 4 and 5 against Miami) to looking listless and uninspired (Games 3 and 7) over the most of the regular season and this postseason run. Few front-runners for a title have fluctuated as much from game to game, from dominating to being dominated, as the Celtics have done this year. Though they knew their franchise players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, together with a dynamic roster ready to support them, would find a way to win, the Celtics still had championship hopes going into the playoffs.
Yet after Boston lost to the Golden State Warriors in the N.B.A. finals last season, this was the year that the bar was raised. A championship was the goal. Tatum, Brown and their teammates could no longer merely exceed expectations: The Celtics were the expected.
Instead, the Celtics will now have to contemplate if Brown and Tatum can be the partnership that carries this team over the final hurdle. And the Celtics’ ownership, along with the team president, Brad Stevens, will have to decide if Joe Mazzulla, the 34-year-old head coach with only one season under his belt, is the right person to lead the team.
Mazzulla was unexpectedly given the job just before training camp in September after the abrupt suspension and eventual firing of Ime Udoka.
He was a surprising choice: His only head coaching experience was at Fairmont State, a Division II program in West Virginia, and he had been an N.B.A. assistant for three years. He was suddenly given the task of taking a team to the top of the mountain.
One of the Celtics’ big acquisitions last summer, forward Danilo Gallinari, tore a knee ligament and missed the season. And one of the team’s defensive anchors, Robert Williams III, didn’t make his debut until December after a knee injury. Still, Mazzulla got the Celtics off to a blistering 21-5 start.
