After working your posterior off for 47 minutes and 59.5 seconds to secure a win, only to see it unravel in the last few milliseconds, anger would be a very understandable reaction.
According to veteran Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart however, it just gave his team even more reason to come out strong on Saturday.
“It’s not really anger,” explained the Flower Mound native the day after the team’s last-second loss to the Toronto Raptors Thursday evening
“What it is is extra fuel, because we know throughout that game, we also could have been a lot better. This is our first loss in the playoffs. So, you lose, and that puts a little bad taste in your mouth, and you want to go back there and redeem yourself.”
“So, tomorrow for us should be a fun game,” added Smart.
Stevens: Celtics have licked their wounds, prepared to compete https://t.co/b2AZcsIfva
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 5, 2020
Both starting center Daniel Theis and head coach Brad Stevens agree with Smart that the real problem was how the team played in the penultimate quarter — a flat start the third quarter the real culprit in Thursday’s loss.
Smart doesn’t seem to think any radical changes are in order.
“You look at the film, see what you’ve done wrong, see what you need to do right,” he explained.
“You go out there and take emphasis on the third quarter, and really owning up to coming out and playing our best. We still haven’t played our best basketball yet. For us, that’s a good thing; [Saturday] should be one of those days where we just go out there and play and fight our way to try and get a win.”
Game 4 will go a long way towards defining this series, one way or another.
For Boston’s Theis, better overall play the remedy for Game 3 loss https://t.co/c3VCtIfKg1
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 5, 2020
If Boston can come out and play their brand of basketball unencumbered with the pressure of Thursday’s loss, there’s a good chance they’ll take a 3-0 lead and likely the series as a result.
But if they come out flat as they did in the third quarter of Game 3, we could end up watching a remix of the Raptors’ last playoff run.
Only this time, the Milwaukee Bucks’ role would be played by the Celtics.