Prior to Game 4, the Celtics were 3-0 in closeout games this postseason, headlined by a 34-point victory against the Heat in round one and a 15-point win over the Cavs in round two—which isn't necessarily the norm.
“Closeout games are never easy,” Derrick White said. “And closeout games in the Finals are probably ten times of that.”
This proved true in Game 4, where the Celtics were outplayed, out-toughed, and out-hustled, leading to a 38-point defeat—the third-largest margin of defeat in NBA Finals history.
Joe Mazzulla has a belief that the closer you are to success, the closer you are to failure, due to human nature naturally settling in.
“The closer you are to winning, the easier it is to become distracted by things that you can’t control, things that don’t matter,” Mazzulla said at practice before Game 3. “You got to fight like hell to accomplish those things with simplicity, discipline, and mental toughness.”
Perhaps that’s what happened in Game 4. Dallas wanted it more, and the Celtics got away from what makes them great.
However, one thing is certain about the 2023-24 Celtics: they don’t allow bad outings to spiral out of control.
“The one thing I can tell you about our group is that time and time again, we’ve responded any time we have adversity, and this is an opportunity that we have here in front of us,” said Al Horford. “I expect us to be much better on Monday.”
Boston is 17-3 following a loss this season. At home, they are 9-1, with their only loss coming in the third-to-last game of the season against the Knicks, 119-109, when home-court advantage throughout the Finals was already secured. None of the starters played in the fourth quarter in that game, and Jayson Tatum was the only starter to log more than 30 minutes.
Of Boston’s nine wins at home following a loss, six came by double-digits, with three by 25 or more points.
Yet, this game is different. This is a closeout game in the NBA Finals. Even 15-year veteran and NBA champion Jrue Holiday acknowledges the unique challenge these games present, though he can’t quite pinpoint why they are so tough.
“I don’t know,” Holiday said when asked what makes it so hard to get that last win. “Even though I’ve done it. You’ve got to do it together as a team. Everybody has to be clicking and being, again, the more desperate team. We’ve just got to go back home. I think locking into tendencies, locking into the game plan, and I think we’ll be okay.”
The Celtics’ game plan for Game 5 remains the same: play their brand of basketball—the style that has brought them to the brink of ending a 16-year championship drought—with an emphasis on execution, details, focus, mindset, and toughness.
“We learn from it [Game 4]. We take it. We don’t dismiss it. We’re going to learn from it,” Jaylen Brown said. “We’re going to see how and why, exactly where the game was won and lost. And then, we take those experiences, and then we come out, and we play like our life depends on it because it does.
Game 4 was a setback, but it only delayed the inevitable. The Celtics are poised to be NBA champions, but they must earn those champagne bottles by staying true to what got them here.
“We’ve got to be better, and we’ve got to have some of our guys step up,” said Brown. “That’s what it takes.”
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