Hurley: Celtics' series with Heat ends the same embarrassing way it started
BOSTON -- From Games 4 through 6, the Celtics restored their credibility. They spared themselves the shame of no-showing in the Eastern Conference Finals against an inferior opponent. They salvaged the season.
Or so we thought.
The reality is, after getting run out of their own building in a do-or-die Game 7 on their home court, the lasting story of this series vs. the Heat will be the same story that prevailed after a grisly Game 3 in Miami.
Embarrassment.
It's not that any loss at all would have been unacceptable. Not at all. The Heat have proven to be the toughest team in the playoffs, and their sneaky depth helped get them to this point. If the Celtics stood toe-to-toe with Miami and played a solid, cohesive game but still lost? That's sports.
What happened on Monday night, though, was far from that. With the season on the line, with a historic 3-0 comeback at stake, with 18,000 hyped-up fans inside the Garden who spent a whole lot of money to be there, the Celtics put together a C-minus showing. And that might be a generous grade.
Yes, Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle early, thereby preventing him from authoring another 51-point Game 7 on his home floor. But that doesn't account for a near-team-wide no-show.
Jaylen Brown heard boos from the home fans after he committed his eighth turnover of the game early in the fourth quarter. He was also 1-for-9 on his 3-point attempts, when the Celtics desperately needed him to carry the offense while Tatum was hurt.
Derrick White, fresh off the Game 6 heroics, hit a couple of threes ... but also missed seven of them. Marcus Smart couldn't do much with effectiveness. Grant Williams was a minus-19 in his 16 minutes off the bench. The offense was broken, and the defense couldn't hold.
It made for a tough watch, and an utter dud of a finish to a series in which the Celtics had actually made people start believing they were heading back to the NBA Finals for a second straight June.
Instead of taking on the Nuggets, the Celtics will take on the offseason. Will Joe Mazzulla remain the head coach? Will the same roster come back in September, or will Brad Stevens pull the trigger on a shake-up? All of these questions begin now, after the quest for another banner short-circuited vs. the Heat.
Perhaps most damning for the Celtics? They lost three games on their home court in this series. And their lone loss in Miami was the worst of their postseason showings, when they trailed by 30 points through three quarters in Game 3.
Game 6 was supposed to be the moment. The 2004 Red Sox were back in the picture. Celtics legends and celebrities alike flocked to the Garden for Game 7. The vibes were right. The performance just didn't match it.
The final scoreboard read 103-84, and the reality is that it wasn't even that close.
The miracle finish in Game 6 is now relegated to being a forgettable footnote in history, instead of an iconic piece of Celtics lore.
That's in large part because the Celtics had zero answer for ... Caleb Martin. In Game 7. In Boston. No Celtics player reached the 20-point mark. And the night ended with Alonzo Mourning handing the Eastern conference champions trophy -- a trophy which just happens to be named The Bob Cousy Trophy -- to the Heat, before handing the series MVP trophy -- a trophy which just happens to be named The Larry Bird Trophy -- to Jimmy Butler.
Again, if that was the result after an earnest, hard-fought loss by the Celtics, then so be it. But it happened after the Celtics waltzed onto their home floor, missed almost 80 percent of their threes, and got outworked and outplayed by a Miami team that brought the right mindset to a do-or-die game.
Much like Game 1, much like Game 2, and much like Game 3, the result of Game 7 was, quite simply, embarrassing.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
