Stevens: Celtics need to be ‘better in transition,’ play less ISOball

The Boston Celtics took their foot off the gas up 14 in the fourth quarter of Game 1 against the Miami Heat in the East Finals, and it cost them dearly.

The Boston Celtics had the Miami Heat right where they wanted them in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Finals series.

Until they didn’t.

Up 14 points early in the game’s fourth quarter, the Celtics took their foot off the gas, playing sloppy defense and ISOball that allowed the Heat to claw their way back into the game, forcing overtime and the eventual 117 – 114 loss.

After the game, head coach Brad Stevens was asked what it was about Miami that enabled them to keep star point guard Kemba Walker cold and Boston off-balance late in the game more generally.

“Some of the guards were able to keep in front with their lengths, and then Bam [Adebayo] was switching a ton of pick and rolls all day,” explained Stevens.

“Bam’s a tremendous defender, so we’re going to have to figure out, again, better ways to attack, especially late,” he added. “I thought we really moved it at times, and then we did get stuck.”

“The fouls killed us, and then the transition, with our transition defense. In addition to playing slower and pounding the ball more so we just got to be a lot better in all those areas. These games go back and forth like this. We were down six I think and then took that lead. We got to play better though, and transition defense really stands out. That Hierro 3 with a minute left and regulation was a killer.”

“But there were multiple other plays that led up to that, that I thought let them back in.”

Stevens stood by his immediate assessment the next day as well.

“What I said yesterday stood out more than anything was a transition defense, [which] was just really bad. To their credit, they attacked us all night down the floor, and … some of those plays in the fourth, where we gave up layups and or got lost on some 3s hurt us. So we’ve just got to clean that up, we’ve got to be a lot better in transition. I think we got to be a lot better on some of their actions, though we guarded other actions well. And then we need to know what to react [to]. We need to know what not to overreact to from an action standpoint.”

“So, those are things that we talked about on the defensive end, we’ll look to play better,” he added.

And play better they will need to do for a full 48 minutes to avoid falling into a 0-2 hole to start the series.

Trailing for the first time this postseason, Boston has learned a painful lesson about the margin for error against this highly-motivated Heat squad.

It’s small enough to be virtually nonexistent, meaning bad habits must be expunged as soon as they re-emerge, and every player will be called on to play like their best selves for every second of game time they can muster.

Perfection won’t be needed from Boston to advance in this series, but something not far from to it will be, if what we saw on Tuesday was any sign of what’s to come.

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