Before Game 3 on Friday night in Chicago, the Celtics simply did not look like themselves. We all knew that Boston had rebounding issues, but nobody could have imagined it was this bad. We all knew that the sudden, tragic death of Isaiah Thomas’ sister would affect the team to some degree, but we didn’t know it would have shifted seemingly the entire roster like it did. The eight seed Bulls absolutely dominated the unprepared one seed Celtics in the first two games of the series, shocking the basketball world.
The collective Celtics team simply looked lost. Nobody expected the Bulls to play the way they did, and as fast as they did. The thing that made it worse was that it’s the eight seed Bulls. They barely squeaked into the playoffs, and they completely spanked the Celtics on their home parquet. One seeds do not embarrass themselves at home like that, but here they were. If Boston wanted to stay in this series for real, something needed to change, and fast.
Thomas made the trip over to Tacoma, Washington on the off-day between Game 2 and 3 to attend his sister’s funeral and be with his grieving family. This rightfully made many of us think that Thomas would lose his focus and the Celtics would get embarrassed again, this time on the road. That was not the case. IT gave his teammates new life when he came back, and it paid off when the Celtics finally won their first game of the series, 104-87. A fresh, amped up Isaiah Thomas was just one ingredient into the winning recipe for the Celtics on Friday night, and hopefully going forward.
After the game, Avery Bradley told TNT that before the game, The Big Ticket Kevin Garnett sent the Celtics an inspirational video message that hyped all of them up big time. Bradley said that it fired everyone in the room up and gave them motivation to go out there and make it a series. And they did just that.
Garnett wasn’t the only beloved Boston athlete to give the Celtics words of encouragement. A few hours before tipoff, Tom Brady posted an Instagram picture showing Bradley embracing Thomas on the court and he captioned it, ‘It’s how you come back… Good luck tonight. We all have your back! #YourTurn”. If that doesn’t get a team pumped up, I don’t know what will. The moment I saw that post, I realized that if the GOAT Tom Brady believes in the Celtics, then so do I.
As for tactical adjustments, Brad Stevens stunned everyone when he announced that Gerald Green of all players would be replacing Amir Johnson in the starting lineup. It would have taken me approximately 2,000 guesses to guess that Gerald Green would be starting Game 3 of the first round. Green’s last start for the Celtics had come on April 13, 2007, for what it’s worth. Amazingly, this move is what did the trick for the Celtics. Going small from the very beginning lifted them, with the move to start Green and also to move Jae Crowder to power forward next to Al Horford. These moves helped spread the Bulls out dramatically, therefore getting Boston’s offense moving and properly flowing like we had not seen in the previous two games.
Green ended up giving them a wing with length and athleticism who could create their own shot, unlike Johnson, allowing the Celtics to crash the glass, which is another thing that we had yet to see out of them entirely. As two bigs pushed Robin Lopez around, that allowed one wing to come in unexpectedly while another could get back into transition, which did the Celtics wonders in the long run. Due to these moves, Bradley racked up seven boards.
Going small from the get-go also forced Chicago to have to guard 5 three-point shooters in Thomas, Horford, Bradley, Green and Crowder, which I can bet my life Chicago did not see coming going into this game. This was a sneaky smart move by Stevens, blindsiding the Bulls entirely, unexpectedly giving them Green out of nowhere. The obvious logic to help to heal Boston’s rebounding woes was to get bigger on the front line, but Brad chose to go small-ball, and it paid off. Boston’s starting five finished with a +39 rating and a sub-80 defensive rating, giving evidence that such a crazy move rewarded crazy results.
As for Johnson, he went almost entirely unused this time around. They went small and chose to use and move the Swedish Larry Bird around in Jonas Jerebko, paying off big time. Many of the mistakes caused when Johnson was on the floor in previous games weren’t primarily his fault, many of them occurring because of the way he played with others on the court. There was simply a lack of necessary flow and overall spacing when Johnson was on the floor.
This then led to much tighter, stricter rotations throughout the night. Nine total men played double-digit minutes, with Thomas playing for just 31 minutes on the night. Boston performed extremely well when Thomas was on the bench, which was absolutely critical for them to manage if they wanted to make this a series. Stevens used Thomas as a fuse when he needed to as essentially a starting sixth man. Bringing Terry Rozier in the game instead of IT to spice things up in the backcourt also paid off. Playing Rozier over Thomas gave the Celtics a more stable and overall athletic backcourt with less defensive struggles as opposed to Thomas. Stevens got the most out of every single one of his players by mixing things up in the correct fashion.
The Celtics were just an overall better prepared group, ready for any of Chicago’s ‘traps’ in the pick and roll that they had fallen victim to prior to Friday night. Increased awareness led to Thomas posting five assists, while Bradley had four and Horford tallied six. Instead of the Bulls punishing the Celtics, Boston decided to flip the script. This was partly in thanks to Rondo’s indefinite absence due to a thumb injury, but still, the Celtics just looked like a new and improved team that could probably have managed to knock down the opposition even if Rondo did play.
We can thank the basketball gods for Rondo’s injury, which was a definite plus and had an obvious positive impact on the Cs, but in general, they were simply 10x more locked in and focused than before. They finally started putting bodies on Lopez, which was a huge key to Boston’s success, they manned up and started grabbing boards, played great overall defense, made their open looks, which there were a lot of, and made so many more mentally-wise decisions on both ends of the court. They kept Jimmy Butler in check, who had a pretty lousy game, and kept no-namers in their place and refused to let guys walk all over them. Their physicality in all categories was upped tremendously. The Celtics just looked like a completely different team; it was night and day compared to the first two contests.
Sure, it’s only one win compared to Chicago’s two, but it’s a huge step in the right direction. They made every single change that they needed to make and took huge advantage of Rondo’s absence. Boston is still very much in this thing. Stevens said that he plans on keeping Green in the starting lineup, and if that is the case and they continue doing what they did on Friday, they can certainly crawl away with the series and advance. Nobody in the East, minus the Cavs, are really prepared to handle the Celtics’ small-ball play, as Milwaukee relies on their length and height, and Washington is most comfortable with the traditional lineup. As long as they keep doing what they’ve been doing and keep their heads up, anything is possible.
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