Al Horford on Celtics’ playoffs struggles at home after Game 3 loss to Heat: ‘You tend to relax a little bit’

BOSTON — While the soldout TD Garden crowd was juiced for another home game Saturday, the Celtics didn’t deliver on those hopes in Game 3. They fell behind by double-digits just minutes into the game, and while they tried to claw back, their comeback attempt fell short in a 109-103 loss to the Heat on Saturday.

The Celtics say they love playing in their friendly confines of home, but they’ve been inconsistent with the home crowd behind them in the playoffs thus far. They dropped to 4-3 at the Garden in the postseason after Saturday’s loss — they also coughed up home-court advantage to the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

While the team’s clearly excited to play in front of their crowd, Al Horford said there’s occasionally some complacency that creeps up at home.

“Coming back home, you tend to relax a little bit, and I feel like we did that at the beginning,” Horford said postgame Saturday. “And then finally in the second we started to play a little bit. You can’t spot a team this much points. It’s tough.”

The Celtics, by the end of the first quarter, found themselves down 39-18. The Heat were more physical in the opening 12 minutes as the crowd was taken out of the game early. That proved to be the difference between the two teams as the Heat beat up on the Celtics early.

Boston coach Ime Udoka said the leaders of the team warned the Celtics that the Heat were going to throw the first punch. The C’s embarrassed the Heat on their home court in Game 2 — much like the Heat did to the Celtics in Game 3. Even with that foresight and warnings, the Celtics still didn’t match the Heat’s intensity in the first quarter.

There were also the many mistakes that kept coming like a steady stream throughout the game. The Celtics turned the ball over a postseason-high 24 times Saturday, and appropriately, those gaffes came at the end of the game to seal the win for the Heat.

“When you turn the ball over 24 times and gift them 33 points out of that, you dig yourself a hole,” Udoka said. “Credit, we fought back and got it to a one-point game and made some mistakes and more turnovers. But you dig yourself in that big of a hole due to playing in a crowd, we understand how they’re going to guard us.”

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