The Boston Celtics shocked a lot of people by losing the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals at home to the Miami Heat, and one would’ve expected them to, at a minimum, fight back big-time in Game 3 in South Florida.
But that’s not exactly what they did at all.
Instead, they gradually fell behind by a bigger and bigger margin as the contest wore on and ended up on the wrong end of a 128-102 margin.
The Celtics released a video on their official Twitter account that summed up their ineptitude on Sunday.
We didn’t play at a high enough level to take home Game 3. pic.twitter.com/9Q8jM6X6tF
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) May 22, 2023
Boston trailed by eight at the end of the first quarter and by 15 at halftime, and instead of fighting back afterward, it looked like they had simply quit.
It came as a shock to fans, especially given the team’s storied history.
In decades past, whenever the Celtics had a championship-caliber team, they always had lots of fight and never seemed to go down without kicking and screaming.
Past editions also had players who were downright mean, either by trash-talking opponents or simply psyching them out.
By comparison, this Celtics team is too nice, and guard Malcolm Brogdon admitted that they don’t really have an identity either.
In addition, Jayson Tatum, their best player, has gone MIA multiple times in the fourth quarter of games this postseason, including in the first two contests of this series.
The Celtics will have lots of work to do this offseason in order to give themselves at real shot at banner No. 18 any time soon.
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