'We failed,' Celtics blown out by Heat in Game 7 as season ends in disappointing fashion
BOSTON -- The Celtics had a chance to write some NBA history and return to the NBA Finals on Monday night. But the Miami Heat had other plans.
The Celtics' comeback bid against Miami -- and their season -- came to an end in disappointing fashion at TD Garden, with Boston getting blown out, 103-84, in Monday night's Game 7 against Miami. The Celtics couldn't get much of anything going offensively but they were really cold from downtown, hitting just nine of their 42 3-point attempts.
Jayson Tatum struggled after rolling his ankle on his first attempt of the game and finished with 14 points, while Jaylen Brown was abysmal with 19 points off a dreadful 8-for-23 shooting.
"It was just frustrating that I was just kind of a shell of myself," Tatum said after the loss.
The Heat got 28 points from Jimmy Butler, but Caleb Martin stole the show with 26 points off 11-for-16 shooting. Martin hit four of his six attempts from downtown, and added nine rebounds and three assists for Miami.
Losing a Game 7 at home after winning three straight games to climb out of a 3-0 series hole is a new level of disappointment for the Celtics. Boston finishes the postseason at 5-6 on its home court, losing all three home games against the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
"We failed," a despondent Brown said after the loss. "I failed. We let the whole city down."
"We failed because we wanted to win a championship. That was our goal." Al Horford said after Game 7. "Despite that, I'm very proud of this group because there were never any excuses. We went through ups and downs but we stuck with it."
"How hard we fought," Marcus Smart said when asked what he would remember from this season. "We put ourselves in a hole down 0-3 and we fought our ass off. We just came up short. We didn't reach out goal but I'm proud of the way we came back and how we came up fighting. You have to tip your cap to Miami."
The Boston offense was stagnant and never really got going in Game 7. The Celtics lived and died by the three all season long, and their season came to an end on one of the team's worst shooting nights from beyond the arc.
The Celtics started the game 4-for-6 from the field but then went ice cold. They missed all 10 attempts from 3-point range in the first quarter, and that draught extended to 0-for-12 into the second quarter before Al Horford hit one with 9:52 in the second quarter to cut Miami's lead to 27-18.
All those misses from downtown allowed the Heat to rip off a 19-4 run between the first and second quarter. Miami's lead ballooned to 17 points midway through the second quarter after Kyle Lowry hit a three and Duncan Robinson blew by Al Horford for a layup to make it 38-21.
Tatum rolled his ankle on a layup attempt to open the game but he played through the pain. Tatum did take an early seat in the first quarter and scored just one point in his eight minutes during the opening frame. He got more hobbled as the game went on, and hit just five of his 13 shots in Monday's loss.
Miami led 52-41 at halftime, hitting 11 of its 25 shots from downtown. Boston also attempted 25 threes in the first half, but hit only six of those attempts.
The Celtics rolled off an 8-0 run, led by five points from Derrick White, to cut Miami's lead to 59-51 midway through the third quarter. Caleb Martin scored back-to-back buckets for the Heat to push the lead back up to a dozen, but White continued to pour it in for Boston. He scored 13 of his 18 points in the third frame and was the only Celtics player to do anything consistent with the ball.
But the Celtics still trailed by 10 heading into the fourth quarter, and it got worse in the opening minutes of the final frame. Tatum missed a bunny on a nice feed from Rob Williams, which Martin turned into a 3-pointer. After Brown was whistled for an offensive foul, Butler turned it into a jumper. He then stole the ball from Brown and took it in for an easy layup, putting Miami back up by 17 points, 83-66.
Brown had a horrid night, committing eight of Boston's 15 turnovers. Miami built a 21-point lead with just under seven minutes to play to silence an otherwise wild crowd at TD Garden, which began to rain boos down on the Celtics a few minutes later.
Instead of a storybook finish to the conference finals, the Celtics now head into the offseason after coming up well short of their goal to win a title. Instead of throwing a parade through the streets of Boston to celebrates Banner 18, the C's have to think about losing to an eight-seed in the Eastern Conference Finals.
