Celtics prepare for Game 6 with their backs to the wall: The support of TD Garden, ready to push Tatum and his teammates, could mean the difference
The giant billboards are still there, at the entrance to TD Garden. Placards with the faces of Celtics players still adorn the streets, iconic spots in the city. They’re the perfect reminder that it’s not over, that Boston still has a shot at winning their 18th title, too welcome to see the rivals. Party tomorrow night in case of winning race-3. But Boston is confident: “I said to the guys, ‘Let’s go home, get some rest and get ready to bring the Finals back to San Francisco for Game 2,'” Coach Udoka said before leaving the bay.
attack
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During the almost 6-hour charter flight that took the team from the private airport in Oakland back to Boston, the coach considered how to solve the problems in his offense. It’s the Celtics’ biggest concern, far more so than Steph Curry or the defense. While the Warriors were still between 100 and 108 points, Jayson Tatum and his teammates managed to win as they scored in triple digits and lost three times, including Game 5 where they stayed at 100. As Udoka has asserted since the beginning of the series, it is the Celtics’ offense that makes the difference, not defense that remains a fixture. “We’ve had periods of stagnation in this series — explains Udoka, with his usual wealth of technical detail, his soft voice, and his fast-paced babble. When we play, our attack is a fluid movement of the ball like in the third quarter of Match-5 when we were able to build open shots. When we slow down, we stagnate and we increase turnovers and complicated shots.” The complicated relationship with three-pointers is the best explanation: The Celtics started Game 5 with 12 consecutive bad threes, a new Finals record, followed by 8 consecutive Three pointers, a new final record. Boston also set the all-time record for three-pointers in the playoffs, 317, moving away from the Warriors in 2016.
Back against the wall
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It’s not just about percentages. The Celtics lost back-to-back games for the first time in this playoff. And for the first time this series, they seemed to be hanging on the ropes, unable to react, faced with their limitations: the short cut that forced Coach Udoka to squeeze Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; the injury preventing Robert Williams from playing the maximum (with him on the field +11 Celtics in Game 5, lost 104-94); Ups and downs of the attack. Even so, Boston trusts. It comes from experience, from this group’s ability to turn around a season that seemed destined for anonymity, if not worse, in January and still sees them on the field in June, from the 3-2 comeback in Milwaukee in the Conference -Semifinals, even won game 6 away. “We have our backs to the wall – admits Al Horford, one of the dressing room managers –: this is the moment when we have to look each other in the eye and understand how to do it, knowing that there is no tomorrow for us “. Brown has a different kind of confidence, a deep conviction that the Celtics can still take a step to straighten out these endgames that risk spiraling out of control: “I’m convinced that we can play much better than in the last two games. We need to get back to playing our way, the Boston Celtics way. We have to do it in the next two games, attack as much as we can. We’ll be out of town and I can’t wait to play.” Boston, with its history and pride, legends and flags, is ready to support its team. Will the Celtics be ready too?
