Boston's CATASTROPHIC Mistake That COST Them The Tournament

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The Pacers made 19 threes on 47.5% from downtown, and you could make an excuse for Boston saying that this doesn’t happen often.
But they made a catastrophic mistake against Indiana that ended up costing them the tournament.
Let me explain. Coming into the game, they had the winning gameplan. Attack Tyrese Haliburton on defense whenever possible. Tatum has him on an island here, so he just takes his time and look at the beautiful spin here finishing with the dunk.
Again, there is absolutely nothing that Tyrese can do defensively against Tatum on this drive as this is too easy for him and the Celtics.
Boston actually targeted Haliburton a bunch of times. And sometimes it ended with a roll at the rim, and sometimes there was a full on switch and Boston guys tortured him in isolations.
But whatever it was, these were all easy and high percentage points for the Celtics.
Even if it wasn’t against Tyrese, you see that the dribble penetration by Boston was unstoppable for the Pacers. Jaylen Brown took everyone off the dribble, blew right past them and finished at the rim. This is too easy.
So you notice how all of these possessions are slow and methodical, searching for the right opportunity, and exploiting the weaknesses of the defense.
if I’m seeing what’s working, I’m running that over and over the entire game right?
Well funny enough, for whatever reason, the Celtics fell into the trap of racing against
Indiana, the team with the fastest pace in the league.
This is what they do. Look at this lightning quick possession starting with the rebound and the quick pass to Tyrese and he takes off the other way. The defense is scrambling to get set, and Haliburton just flips it back to Buddy Hield and he launches it from way downtown, hitting nothing but the bottom of the net.
Again, the rebound by Topin and the Pacers are storming down in transition, Brown gets caught up in the paint and that’s all that Bruce Brown needs to let it fly and knock it down.
So falling into this chaos, the Celtics started jacking up 3 pointers with a lot of them being completely forced up and unnecessary.
Tatum has the much smaller Nembhard on him, with everyone spread out and the paint wide open. Why in the world is he chucking this up and bailing out the defense.
Again this is Halliburton on him in the clutch. Why settle for the contested jumper instead of driving inside and either finishing or if a double team comes, he’d create a much better wide open look.
This possession was a straight up mess right from the beginning, but Jrue Holiday really seals the deal with this contested 3 pointer that of course misses.
So naturally, launching these types of shots, the Celtics were 12 for 41, that 29% from downtown.
The difference in how easy and nice those drives looked, and how disorganized all of this seems, is night and day.
Trying to outpace Indiana, Boston finished the game with 17 turnovers, and you can see that again the reason for a lot of those was that they were rushing.
The Pacers got them right where they wanted them, and in a single elimination game like this, that’s all they needed. A hot shooting night, and just like that, they’re in the semi finals.
And speaking of that let me eat my words and completely take back what I said in a previous video about the tournament. Maaan this is great. The arena was rocking, the competitiveness was just like a playoff game, so Adam Silver, I’m sorry for what I said. Actually, I still think that nobody cares about the group stage, and the courts are still hideous, and an injury hazard for the players, that’s still a fact. But the final day of the groups, and the elimination is absolutely phenomenal.
Here’s a reminder of the chaos that took place on the final day of the group stage. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.