BOSTON – The Celtics pretty much had their way with the Mavericks in the first half of Game 1 in the NBA finals.
They were firing on all cylinders, up by as many as 29 in the second quarter before taking a 63-42 lead at the half.
Then, the third quarter happened, and an all too familiar dip by the Celtics.
The Mavs went on a 22-9 run to cut the lead to eight after Luka Doncic hit a 3-pointer with 4:27 to go in the quarter.
That’s when Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla called a timeout.
Mazzulla had a word with the group, and several Celtics also spoke up. What was the message?
“We just said, just breathe. The game is starting now. Just breathe,” said Jaylen Brown, who went on a tear after the timeout. “We’re in … this is a moment where our experience shines through. Just breathe, just keep playing basketball. If you got a shot that’s open, take it with confidence, no turnovers, take care of the basketball and just play our game. We got to get some stops. They made some big shots. Just navigate the run. That was it.”
And that, was basically it for the Mavs.
The Celtics responded with a 14-0 run of their own, with Brown scoring eight of his team-high 22 points during that stretch, to basically bury Dallas en route to a 107-89 win in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Prior to the run, Jayson Tatum felt like the Mavericks did some things defensively to disrupt the flow of the offense.
“I think our offense got a little stagnant and it had a lot to do with our spacing. They kind of put us into some bad ways on offense which kind of threw off our spacing and slowed us down,” Tatum said. “They started to get stops, running in transition, but that’s part of it. They’re going to make shots. That’s a really good team over there.
“We just did a great job of responding in realtime after Joe called that timeout. They cut it to eight, we came to the bench and talked about it, executed and made plays and took the lead back up.”
Mazzulla was glad his team responded, but wasn’t surprised. He said it was important to be able to manage the game.
So the timeout to get their ducks back in a row after the Mavericks run was important.
“Yeah, listen, it’s the NBA Finals, you’re playing against a great team and they’re going to make runs,” Mazzulla said. “(So it’s) just building on awareness to why the run was made and, you know, that team does a great job of making defensive adjustments on the fly and sometimes it takes us a possession or two to recognize that.
“So just understanding the run, what could we do to change it, and how can we get better coming out of that. So I thought the guys’ poise out of that timeout was big and that’s going to happen. They’re going to go on more runs and we’re going to have to fight through ‘em.”
