Brad Stevens isn’t simply stroking his players — fluffing up those egos – when he tells them they’re special.
But the Celtics coach also felt a need Monday for the Celtics to prove it.
“One of the things we’ve talked a lot about is special groups — and if you want to be special it’s only reserved for a few, right? Special groups have a great resiliency about them,” he said before the Celtics blew apart Game 5 with a 111-89 win over Toronto for a 3-2 second round series lead.
After admitting a lack of effort after the Raptors tied the series in Game 4, the Celtics made themselves felt early in the defensive end, limiting Toronto to an 11-point first quarter and a 35-point first half — both lows for any team in the playoff field. Toronto’s 27-point halftime deficit was the second-worst in franchise playoff history.
Stevens basically snorted at the notion three days ago that offense was his problem in Game 4.
“It starts on defense,” he said, and sure enough, with Marcus Smart and an electrified Jaylen Brown turning in some great early defensive possessions, the Celtics carved out an early edge, led by a 62-35 score at halftime and protected their billowing lead the rest of the way.
“It’s the playoffs. Gotta come out ready to fight every single night,” said Brown, who scored 16 of his 27 points in the first half. “If not, that’s how you lose. So our guys came out ready to fight tonight. We gotta come out ready to fight tomorrow, I mean next game.”
Though they lost yet another third quarter — it’s been nine straight since the playoffs began — Stevens was able to ward off an early slide in the quarter with a timeout that reset his team’s edge.
Fred VanVleet had just cruised in for a pair of drives when, with just over eight minutes left in the third, the Celtics coach pulled his team off the floor. They returned with greater energy, returned to disrupting the Raptors, and averted the kind of third-quarter collapse that plagued them in Game 4.
“One of things we’ve talked about is trying to stay in the moment — go at each possession as well as we can,” he said. “Obviously we wanted to start better than we did. But even when I called the timeout we were only minus 2 or 3. When you have a big lead like that, as long as it’s not minus 10 or minus 8, you can manage it a little bit. It’s more a thought that we have to play the possession better — we have to play every possession better.”
Brown, coming in off a 2-for-11 Game 4 performance from downtown, started mixing it up at both ends, finished the half with 16 points on 6-for-11 shooting, and finally left the floor with 27 points, three 3-pointers, six rebounds and three steals.
“Jaylen has a big time character,” said Stevens. “He’s got competitive character, he works, he’s focused, he wants to do well, and it was good to see him knock in that first one. But I don’t think it would have mattered if he missed a couple early. He was going to be aggressive, and that was good for our team.”
But the Celtics also had to make a team-wide statement Monday night with a win that restores control of the series.
They have a defensive pedigree to live up to.
“We were really active, just trying to play as hard as we could,” said Stevens. “We were playing with great purpose. You could feel that from the get-go. You just hope you knock enough in to get something going, and we did. They’re very tough to guard, they have a lot of people to go to, and we’ll have to be good again.”
Jaylen Brown found some answers: After blaming himself for the Game 3 loss, Brown was hard on himself; OG Anunoby’s game-winner resulted from a team defense breakdown, and Brown missed his first nine 3-point attempts in Game 4. Monday, he started by dominating both ends of the floor.
He’s good, as Stevens noted, at putting the experiences behind him.
“No different than any other day I go to sleep and wake up,” Brown said of his previous two days.
“I didn’t change anything just because good games, bad games, ups and downs, it’s life,” he said. “It’s how it happens. Last game, I feel like I got some good looks that didn’t go down. This game I got some good looks, they went down. Same mindset was to keep shooting if I’m open, don’t hesitate. Believe in myself, I think my coaching staff and organization believes in me, so we’ve just got to keep going. I didn’t change anything really. The emphasis I would say was less is more. Just keep making the simple plays, hit singles, and that paid off. The mindset was the same.”
Kemba Walker attacked: After only taking nine shots in Game 4, the point guard returned to his aggressive self, scoring 17 points while also doubling his Game 4 output with 18 attempts. The 3-pointer, though, continues to elude him. One-for-8 Monday night from downtown, Walker is now 2-for-14 from deep range over his last two games.
“I just really read the game,” said Walker. “I was just put in position to make plays tonight, and that’s what I did. I still don’t really know how many shots I took, but I think I was just more in control tonight.”
Brad Wanamaker fills a gap: There was a stretch in the second quarter when the Celtics’ push to a 27-point halftime lead was aided by the backup point guard’s seven-point, one-trey, two-assist, one-steal run through all 12 minutes.
“I don’t know how long he played in that first half, but it felt like 13 or 14 minutes,” said Stevens. “It was hard to take him out. He was playing great. When they go to their zones and things like that, he has such great instincts that he can adjust to the flow. I thought he did a great job, impacted us quite a bit. But I thought we were moving the ball in that first half well. Didn’t play as well in the second half, but really competed.”
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Celtics shut down Toronto with Game 5 win for 3-2 lead - Boston Herald
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