Basketball

With Rob Williams back and Al Horford locked in, Celtics defense dominates in Game 4


BOSTON — Al Horford wanted a sense of urgency. Staring at the sobering aftermath of Game 3, he knew the Celtics had to come out angry and vicious if they wanted to turn the series around.

So, on the first defensive play of the game, he wanted to make a statement. Bam Adebayo cooked him and everyone else in his path in the last game. That wasn’t going to happen Monday night.

On Horford’s first chance to guard Adebayo on the opening possession, he got low, looked angry and stripped the Heat center, kicking off a fast break for Derrick White to score the opening points. Just like Miami did in the previous game, the Celtics took a 2-0 lead and never looked back, with Horford tearing a hole through the paint all night. Miami didn’t hit a shot for almost nine minutes, and the Celtics tied the series with a 102-82 win.

Yet after the game ended, there was hardly jubilance. There was barely a sense of relief. Celtics coach Ime Udoka and Jayson Tatum both said it’s a new series. Tatum said he doesn’t believe in looking back. It was all about winning two in a row, responding to success rather than fear.

“We shouldn’t have to get punched in the mouth to respond,” Rob Williams said. “That’s just my opinion.”

In a series of extremes, Horford set the tone from the jump and Williams brought that special extra edge that has made Boston so great this season.

“I think, for everybody, the focus was great tonight,” Udoka said. “We understood we have to be more aggressive and physical on the defensive end. Bam got it going last game, and guys take that personal. So to hold guys — nobody scored in double figures with their starters — I think we obviously set the tone right there. But we have a prideful team, one of the best defensive teams in the league as well as individuals, and they heard some of the things that were said and took pride in those matchups.”

The Celtics came out and held a banged-up Jimmy Butler to six points and one assist, Adebayo to just five shots and Kyle Lowry to one measly 3-pointer.

Tatum outscored Miami’s starting lineup 31-18 and took two more free throws than the entire Heat roster. The Celtics won by 20 points even though Miami hit nearly twice as many 3s. Boston reached 38 free-throw attempts in a conference final or later game for the first time since Game 2 of the 2008 NBA Finals, per Stathead. This game was an offensive disaster-piece, a game befitting a team whose defensive identity kept it afloat for months before it finally figured out how to move the ball.

“Urgency. That was a focal point coming into this game was just have a sense of urgency on both ends of the floor, from start to finish,” Tatum said. “Really starting the game better, obviously, than we did last game. That’s something that we talked about and something that we executed tonight.”

Horford solved every problem the Celtics defense saw, whether it was timing switches onto Adebayo to get Payton Pritchard out of a mismatch or stepping into the lane to stop a drive without losing his man behind him. But the basics of Boston’s defense worked much better than earlier in this series.

With Williams back in the lineup, Boston’s deep-drop coverage was so much more coordinated and shrunk Miami’s comfort zone to the midrange, something Butler said was an issue of settling on his part. Horford could stay close to Adebayo on the roll while Jaylen Brown would trail behind Butler handling the ball, all because Williams could step up into the lane to stop Butler, then recover out to P.J. Tucker in the corner to stop the shot.

Williams would often sit in the lane at the beginning of Adebayo’s rolls to take the steam out of the play, then slide out toward the corner to get ready to close out to Tucker if Miami made the kick out. He never made a shot after dropping 17 points in Game 3, taking only one 3 Monday.

“They did a better job of getting into us and rotating guys into the paint,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Similar coverage to the other night. I think just a little bit more purposeful on their end. A few more extra efforts. And then we didn’t do things with great intention after that first trigger. We just kind of settled in and just took the first available contested shot. Against a great defense like they have or, conversely, against us, if you fall prey to that, you’re going to feel like you’re in quicksand.”

Boston’s offense got twisted up in Miami’s cycling defense earlier in the series, struggling to deal with Miami putting its size up front with early rotations by guards on the backline to get stops anyway.

When Lowry returned for Game 3, he took Miami’s defensive versatility to the next level with his craftiness helping in the paint. He would take on cross matches on switches, then make bold choices to get to spots early, knowing Miami could figure out a way to recover on the back end. It threw off Tatum and Brown early, as they had to figure out new spots to drive and kick the ball way too late in the game to finish their comeback. But they went back, watched the film and figured things out right away, with Williams bringing the solution.

“Just taking advantage of mismatches. You might have one on the wing; you might have one on the block,” Williams said. “It’s just, when they’re giving us reads, you’ve got to make the right play. I don’t necessarily think it’s something the team is doing different. It’s just you can never take everything away. So when they give you the read, make yourself a play.”

Boston found ways to intentionally drag Lowry down to the paint off the ball, wanting him to take charges to open up the lob game to Williams, which had disappeared against Milwaukee. The Heat play short lineups almost the entire game, and though they have elite physicality and hand-eye coordination, Adebayo is the only player who can take away Boston’s vertical spacing above the rim. So they would run plays where Williams would down screen Lowry and hold him to force a switch, then run down to the dunker spot behind the hoop to make sure Lowry was the low man.

Then Tatum would attack toward Adebayo’s side of the floor, pulling Adebayo onto the perimeter so Boston could drive past him and throw it within a zip code of the rim.

Tatum also adjusted by pulling up early when he saw Lowry coming over for the charge, using an up-fake to lose his defender and get a wide-open shot. He still struggles to find his deep shot, but he had a drastically more composed game finding openings in the defense.

Horford spent a lot of the game spaced to the corner opposite Williams’ baseline roaming, making sure Adebayo was too far from the rim to contest the lob. Or Tatum and Horford would get into a transition pick-and-roll to pull out Adebayo, Horford would roll out to space instead of through the lane to lead to one of many pocket-pass turnovers from Game 3, and then Williams’ man would step up from the rim to open up the lob again.

When Miami was in its zone, Boston would run a pick-and-roll to the middle of the paint, enter it to the roll man and then lob it up to Williams when Adebayo stepped up onto the roll. The Celtics found whatever they wanted, whether the Heat were in man or zone coverage, once again proving they can be masterful at turning things around after an aggravating film session.

Now it’s just about sustainability. Butler looks like he is struggling through his knee soreness, Adebayo was held at bay for the third time this series, and Lowry isn’t there yet. With Tyler Herro missing Game 4 with a groin injury, all of Miami’s primary creators need to bounce back, and that gives Boston the advantage when it stops making countless mistakes.

It’s why Udoka weaved into every answer after the game that the Celtics need to string together some wins.

“I think just having a conversation that I think human nature plays a part in: When you win a game, you can relax a little bit,” Tatum said. “But obviously, when we lose a game, we feel like the next game is do-or-die, and then we come out and play like we did.”

Game 5 is the last moment to avoid staring elimination in the face. The last series followed this same script, with Milwaukee getting the 1-0 start and then trading wins until Boston was facing elimination in Game 6. As the Celtics and Heat look like the attrition of their seasons is grinding them down, Game 5 should be do-or-die.

“It’s an inconsistent series from both teams at times, and it’s an odd one, honestly, when you look at some of the numbers tonight, the way we didn’t shoot or play offense that great and having a 30-point lead,” Udoka said. “Did what we did defensively, and now have to do it again.”

(Photo of Al Horford, left, and Robert Williams: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)





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