Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals opened with Jayson Tatum turning his ankle, and the Celtics never regained their footing.
Inexcusable.
Boston entered the night riding the high off Game 6's final half-second, and one of the biggest tragedies of this series is how Derrick White's incredible clutch play will likely be lost to history because Boston's All-NBA players got outplayed by undrafted small forward Caleb Martin.
Tatum spent most of the evening wincing and limping. There were moments in the second quarter when he looked to be on the cusp of a gutsy performance, like a steal off Kyle Lowry and coast-to-coast sprint that brought the Celtics back within 13 points.
Here's where the whole thing crumbled: Every time the Celtics ate, they burped the momentum back up the other way just seconds later. That's rude and gross. Only White could string together a series of possessions with any rhythm, taking the team on an 8-0 run in the third quarter that brought them within striking distance of a win.
Joe Mazzulla lauded his team's "togetherness" after the 103-84 loss, but it never looked that way on the side of the court he adores.
"We just couldn't — couldn't score," he said. When genially questioned by NBCSports Boston about what went wrong, he only offered, "They played better than we did. I don't know."
It sure looked that way.
But Mazzulla can't be blamed for Jaylen Brown's disastrous efforts. Brown finished the night with a team-high 19 points, but those came at the cost of turning the ball over a ghastly eight times. Miami's zone defense has capitalized off Brown's loose handles for years now. None of this should come as a surprise, but it's still not very nice to watch.
"Offensively, it just seemed we couldn't hit a shot, and it put a lot of pressure on us defensively," Brown said after the loss.
That may be true, but the pressure manifested itself most through his shot selection. He went 1-for-9 from the 3-point line and looked impatient whenever Boston began to chip away at Miami's lead. The clumsy and forced style permeated the rest of the team.
"When we're not playing well offensively and shots aren't falling I think we lose trust. I think that's how the game works," Malcolm Brogdon said postgame. "I think we lose trust, and it shows, and then we have more breakdowns on defense because we're not making shots, because we're not moving the ball."
While forcing a Game 7 with three straight wins showed grit from this team, losing to the No. 8 seed is a terrible look for a duo poised to make somewhere around $600 million in total contracts. Their postseason play regressed long before Tatum turned his ankle.
"One game from being in the Finals, it stings incredibly," Brown said.
Brown didn't show his All-NBA capabilities in this game, but the honors make him eligible for a supermax contract next year. When pressed on keeping Brown in Boston, Tatum praised his teammate.
"He's one of the best players in this league, plays both ends of the ball," he said of Brown. "Still relatively young, and he's accomplished a lot so far in his career, so I think it's extremely important."
Will the Celtics make Brown the highest-paid player in the league? If not, will Brown take less than he's technically earned? Fans who wish to see the pair continue together got a glimmer of hope from him Monday night:
"As hard as this one is to swallow, you get better," Brown said. "Tough one for me, tough one for our team, tough one for our organization. Extremely bad timing. You learn, it's part of the journey. This is not the end."
