Brown: Celts ‘looked like the team that we all know and love’ in Game 5

For Jaylen Brown, defensive intensity and aggressive attack of the Miami Heat’s zone defense were key elements of the Boston Celtics Game 5 win.

Boston Celtics star forward Jaylen Brown believes his team was playing with the right intentions to start their Game 5 win over the Miami Heat on Friday, but were trying too hard, as if to make up for past lapses that were responsible for their 3-1 deficit in the Eastern Conference Finals series coming into the tilt.

“We just knew on the first half that we were playing with a lot of energy, but it was kind of all over the place and we just had to dial it in,” he explained.

“We had the right mindset from the beginning of the game, but it was a little bit all over the place. Once we settled down a little bit, kept that same intensity, it worked out for us,” Brown added.

The team had good luck in their early misfortunes, which sounds contradictory, except the Celtics should have been down much more than the seven-point hole they carried into the break.

“We were playing a little bit fast, a little bit antsy,” noted Brown

“We were trying to win the game in the first half, and we just needed to stay with it, keep making the right play, and just settle down a little bit,” he added. “When we did, shots started going in, our defensive intensity was was good.”

“We gave up less baskets in third quarter, and looked like the team that we all know and love.”

Doing so likely saved Boston’s season from the brink of disaster; for a while there, things were looking bleak.

One positive that can be taken is that the Celtics are looking increasingly comfortable with the Heat’s defense of choice, a 2-3 zone with the big men out front.

Asked how important it was to get into the middle of Miami’s zone as they had been throughout this game, Brown replied, “Super important.”

“I think that’s the key — being aggressive and Miami’s really good at making it seem like it’s not open. They have a lot of guys who have length; [Jae] Crowder, [Jimmy] Butler, even [Devin] Robinson has length, so we’ve just got to do it anyway.”

“Play hard and play with intensity, and trust that we can cover for our mistakes if we if we play hard enough,” he added.

On Sunday, they’ve earned another chance to do exactly that.

Tip-off is at 7:30 Eastern Time.

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