‘It should make for a better story’: Celtics remain confident despite facing 0-2 deficit against Heat

© Jim Davis/Globe Staff Jayson Tatum and the Celtics will have to come back from a 2-0 hole in order to make their second straight NBA Finals.

The Celtics’ season isn’t on the line yet, but it will certainly feel like it is in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Boston lost Game 2 to the Miami Heat, putting it in an 0-2 hole as it dropped both games on its homecourt to start the series.

Historically speaking, teams to go down 0-2 in a series have gone on to lose the series at a high rate as such teams have only come back to win the series just 7.4 percent of the time. There have only been five times in NBA history where the higher-seeded team lost the first two games and came back to win the series, too.

But this Boston group has certainly dealt with its fair share of games where its backs have been against the wall over the last couple of postseasons. The Celtics won all three of their road elimination games dating back to the start of the 2022 postseason and have gone 5-1 when facing elimination over the last two years.

That could be why Jayson Tatum, who scored a game-high 34 points on Friday but didn’t make a basket in the fourth quarter again, isn’t hitting the panic button, yet.

“I mean, it’s tough. It’s a challenge,” Tatum said of the uphill climb facing the Celtics. “I mean, it’s no point in being up here sad and [expletive], right? They came in and won two games. They played well, you give them credit. But we’re not dead or anything.

“We got a great opportunity. I still have the utmost confidence, everybody has the utmost confidence. We just got to get ready for Game 3.”

While the Celtics might have confidence, and some reason to feel that way, the Heat delivered a pair of devastating blows in the games at TD Garden. The Celtics held double-digit leads in both games, including in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game, before Jimmy Butler led the way in flipping things around for the Heat.

Both the Celtics’ losses were reminiscent of their first two losses against the Heat in the 2020 Eastern Conference finals, in which they blew double-digit leads in both games too to go down 0-2 in that series.

When Jaylen Brown was asked if the Heat had some sort of mental edge, he turned his focus to remaining confident through the process.

“Just got to come out fighting, play basketball,” Brown said. “I think both of these two games they have been able to come out on top, but who is to say we can’t come out on top in the next two games. We just got to come ready to play basketball, can’t lose our confidence.

“It’s the first to four. It should make for a better story.”

Of course, Brown knows that the Celtics have to turn it around quickly.

“Oh, we got no choice. We have no choice,” Brown said when asked about confidence being an issue before Sunday’s Game 3. “Shake it off. Obviously, we let two games here on our home court down, let our fan base down, let, you know, everybody down. But we got opportunities still in front of us. So, you look forward to it and you get up and you play basketball.”

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said that his message to the team was simple, saying “We got to win one at a time.”

There are two things Mazzulla thinks the Celtics can do to win one game at a time.

“Just the consistency and the discipline and the mindset that it takes,” Mazzulla said. “Whether it’s finishing plays, valuing the basketball, making the right play. Like it always comes down to those little things.”

One of the things that the Celtics will have to remain consistent and disciplined at is defending Butler. The Heat star scored 27 points on Friday, but he particularly went off after Grant Williams engaged in some trash talk with him. Butler scored nine points from that point on, hitting 4-of-5 field goal attempts when Williams covered him down the stretch.

Robert Williams said the best way to get the mental edge back is just by stopping what the Heat do best.

“Play defense. Take the challenge. Everybody, the whole team,” Williams said on how to stop the Heat. It’s not a one-person thing. The whole team has to step up and take the challenge.”

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The post ‘It should make for a better story’: Celtics remain confident despite facing 0-2 deficit against Heat appeared first on Boston.com.