ATLANTA — The Celtics didn’t need to be back here. All they had to do was go for the kill.
Midway through the fourth quarter of Game, the C’s were in complete control. Up 13 with 6:10 remaining. Leading by 12 with 5:24 to go. But after asserting themselves for 42-plus minutes, they relaxed. They got complacent and passive. They failed to close out the Hawks, who led by Trae Young pulled off a miraculous comeback to force a Game 6.
“We played not to lose instead of just playing to win the game,” Marcus Smart admitted Thursday morning at Celtics shootaround. “And that happens. Unfortunately it happened to us and we just made things a little bit harder for ourselves. We’ve got another great opportunity to be here. God has blessed us to wake up today and come out and try to bring it home.”
Even after blowing the lead, the Celtics found themselves in a position to survive in the final seconds of Game 5. But two plays proved to make the difference.
The C’s led 115-114 with 25 seconds to go after they won a jump ball and Jayson Tatum found Robert Williams for an alley-oop. But moments later, Smart took a huge risk. He knocked the ball loose from Young, and crashed to the floor in an effort to grab the loose ball. But he went through Young’s back and was called for the foul, much to Smart’s disagreement.
“It’s calculated. I tipped the ball, loose ball, we dove to the floor,” Smart said. “I got called for a foul. I mean, I don’t know what else to do about that. I dive on the floor every single time, every game, it doesn’t matter. And that’s a loose ball, it’s not like he had the ball in his hands. It was a loose ball and we both went after it. I don’t see how I got called for the foul, but it happens.
“You just move on. It’s not going to change the way that I play. I guarantee if it falls on the ground again, I’m going to dive my ass on the floor again. It is what it is.”
The Celtics had another chance. They retook the lead after Derrick White was fouled with 6.5 seconds left and made both free throws to make it 117-116. Then the Hawks called timeout to advance the ball to midcourt, and Young received the inbounds in the backcourt. With Jaylen Brown defending him, Smart creeped up to offer help for a potential double team. But he didn’t get there before Young pulled up from 30 feet and drilled the game-winning 3-pointer.
The Hawks were only trailing by one, so they didn’t need a 3-pointer, but Smart said Young was probably going to take that shot anyway.
“We’ve been doing really good all series in taking that shot away,” Smart said. “So, even with me coming, even if I didn’t come, he’s probably going to take that shot. Even if I came harder, he was still going to take that shot. I wasn’t the defender on him, so the primary defender at times has to know that we have to be pressed up and continue to make it tough. He loves that shot and he walked right into it and he was comfortable. We can’t let him be comfortable.”
