MIAMI — Even after the Boston Celtics pulled away for a resounding win Monday night, with Jayson Tatum controlling most of the second half, Joe Mazzulla sounded riled up when asked about the way his team ended the second quarter.
“We got away with it today,” Mazzulla said.
The coach’s implication, of course, was that the Celtics would not always get away with such poor end-of-quarter execution. They overcame it to pummel the Miami Heat on the road 103-85, but the result didn’t wipe away all of Mazzulla’s fury over the 7-0 run his team surrendered at the end of the first half.
“We just have to have a heightened awareness to the details of closing out quarters,” Mazzulla said. “That to me is the biggest difference between winning and losing.”
After a comfortable win, Mazzulla’s sharp comments about the end of the second quarter provided a window into the way he evaluates the game. He doesn’t necessarily dwell on the results one way or another, but on his team’s process throughout a contest. As well as the Celtics played for most of Monday night, especially defensively, they could have cost themselves by bungling the final minute of the first half. It didn’t hurt them against the Heat, who were incorporating several new players acquired in the Jimmy Butler trade, but could matter during a big game down the road.
Mazzulla suggested that many games swing on such stretches. As much as observers focus on fourth-quarter mistakes or crunch time failures after losses, Mazzulla said end-of-quarter lapses like the Celtics committed Monday can be even more damaging.
“That stuff can cost you more than what happens in the fourth quarter,” Mazzulla said, “but when you’re winning no one wants to talk about it.”
Mazzulla wanted to discuss it on Monday. He believed the Celtics mishandled several details at the end of the first half. Even before Bam Adebayo ended the second quarter with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer off the glass, Mazzulla could be seen expressing his frustration with his team’s approach to the final moments of the period. He didn’t like that the Celtics squandered a two-for-one opportunity and inadvertently handed one to the Heat. It appeared to disgust him that Tatum, after missing a layup with 10 seconds left in the half, reached at Adebayo in an attempt to steal the ball from him instead of retreating on defense. On the sideline, Mazzulla could be seen angrily clapping his hands after Tatum’s decision.
Looks like Joe Mazzulla may not have been pleased with Jayson Tatum not getting back on defense here pic.twitter.com/NRf0MezXMd
— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) February 11, 2025
About 50 seconds earlier, the Miami run started when the Celtics failed to keep Adebayo off the offensive glass. He pulled down a Kyle Anderson miss and drew a shooting foul on Kristaps Porziņģis. Mazzulla only became more exasperated as Boston’s lead, which stood at 16 points with less than a minute left in the half, shrank to 52-43 on the Adebayo buzzer-beater.
“He’s big on finishing quarters and finishing the right way,” Sam Hauser said. “And we had a big lead there and they cut it to single digits there to end the half. So I think it was just frustrating for him.”
As lucky as Adebayo’s banked shot might have been, the Celtics could have eliminated his attempt by properly executing a two-for-one. Instead, Tatum attempted a stepback 3-pointer with 37 seconds left, likely a few seconds earlier than Mazzulla would have wanted the shot to come. The Heat quickly punished the Celtics by scoring in transition with 29.4 seconds left in the half. That gave Miami, instead of Boston, the two-for-one.
As the Celtics continued to pile up late-quarter mistakes, Mazzulla did not attempt to hide his rage on the sidelines. He then let the Boston players know about his displeasure during the halftime break. Tatum said Mazzulla challenged the Celtics in the locker room.
“Yeah, he wasn’t happy with us,” echoed Al Horford.
Based on the way Tatum described the exchange, he was the one most squarely in Mazzulla’s crosshairs.
“A lot of that was my fault,” Tatum said. “I put us in some tough positions. He was just kind of letting me know that at halftime. I took it on the chin and just responded in the second half.”
After a quiet first half, Tatum scorched the Heat with 20 third-quarter points on 8-for-11 shooting. Though he played all 12 minutes of the third quarter, the Celtics also left him on the court for the first 9:21 of the fourth. Even for Tatum, one of the NBA’s ironmen, that constituted an unusually long stint. Mazzulla played the All-Star for more than 21 straight minutes despite the Celtics leading by 23 points at the start of the fourth quarter and by at least 20 for most of the fourth.
The coach did that on a night when Tatum, who was listed on the injury report with right patella tendinopathy, was only upgraded from questionable to available shortly before tipoff. Maybe he wasn’t in much pain after all. When listed as questionable on the injury report, Tatum has a habit of playing anyway.
“I guess I’m a little hardheaded,” Tatum said. “Maybe there’s a plan to find a game for me to rest or whatever and I might agree to it in that moment and then we get down here and it’s like, ‘Nah, f— it. I want to play.’”
Even if Tatum felt fully healthy, why did he play so many minutes in the second half of a lopsided game? He said he only expected to stay in the lineup for two or three fourth-quarter minutes until the Celtics put the game away. Instead, he played most of the fourth quarter. Mazzulla pointed out that his options on the wing were limited without Jrue Holiday and Jaylen Brown. Plus, Mazzulla hinted he might have left Tatum out there partly as a reward for turning his game around after a subpar first half.
“He’s playing really well, he’s in a groove, he’s creating for himself and creating for others,” Mazzulla said. “To me, it’s when he’s locked in defensively I enjoy giving him the freedom to play more. So he’s getting more minutes, but he’s doing the right thing at both ends of the floor, especially defensively.”
Whatever led to the extra second-half minutes, Tatum took Mazzulla’s halftime complaints to heart.
“I think the way we ended that first half, a lot of that was on me,” Tatum said. “I didn’t have as much of an imprint on the game as I normally do in that first half. So just kind of time for me to wake up in that second half.”
Tatum woke up and put the Heat to sleep. But even after he did, Mazzulla wouldn’t forget about the ways Boston botched the end of the first half. He believed the errors could have let the Heat back in the game.
“That 7-0 run,” Mazzulla said, “is why we sit here (sometimes) and talk about what happens at the end of a close game.”
(Photo of Jayson Tatum: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
