Boston Celtics ‘gotta get better’ about protecting leads, ’We went away from what was working’

The Boston Celtics spent a lot of time in Game 1 of their opening round series against the Philadelphia 76ers looking like the better team. Their defensive game plan looked to be working wonderfully and the shots they were getting didn’t seem to take a lot of effort (even though they didn’t fall as often as Boston wanted).

Yet, Boston never quite could pull away from the Sixers.

“We went away from what was working and they are a good team,” Jayson Tatum said after the Celtics win. “They have some great players and they are going to play hard and not give up. It’s the playoffs, it’s a game of runs and we understand that. We just have to refocus and regroup and come back together and do what was working for us.”

Brad Stevens is big on building habits, and what the Celtics allowed the Sixers to do in this game is a bad habit resurfacing to hurt his team.

“We’ve gotta get better at that. I thought we really made great strides against Brooklyn and Toronto in the seeding games where we just kept going,” Stevens said. “We need to keep going no matter good or bad. I’m really happy with the way we responded when we were down, but there were three or four times we were up 10 or 11 and it got cut to three or four. We’ve gotta be better than that.”

Stevens is always careful to give the other team credit in moments like this, but Boston’s effort noticeably waned when things looked comfortable for them. After the Celtics took a 10 point lead with 3:08 to play, the Celtics watched the Sixers get three offensive rebounds in rapid succession to eat into the lead. Joel Embiid bull rushed his way to another offensive board but missed a tip-in that would have made it a two-point game with less than 30 seconds to go. The Sixers had 16 second chance points and Boston is lucky it wasn’t more.

“Hey look, this is the NBA, this is the playoffs, those guys over there are nowhere near slouches,” Kemba Walker said. “They’re professionals and they’re really good. A lot of it was them… Just making plays and taking advantage of our mistakes. We’re gonna go back and watch film and just learn how we can get better, especially when we take leads like that. We have to do better taking care of our leads.”

A day to sit and review the mistakes of Game 1 should be enlightening for the Celtics. Their bad habit of easing up when things seem to be in hand could, and probably should have, cost them dearly. They got away with one on Monday night.

“We had a lot of adrenaline when we came out today,” Jaylen Brown said. “We just needed to relax a little bit, just breathe, take some deep breaths, and before you know it we’ve got it going. But we’ve got to maintain it. So I’m looking forward to Game 2.”

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