Malcolm Brogdon says Celtics identity has diminished during the season

MIAMI – Like the boston celtics look down on the possibility of being swept from the Eastern Conference finals, save malcolm brogdon said that the team’s problems against miami in this series they are a symptom of season-long woes against consistent opponents, adding that Boston’s identity has “diminished all year” and that its defense has faltered.

“I think these are teams that have a strong identity,” Brogdon said during an off-day availability session Monday afternoon at the team hotel before Game 4 Tuesday night. “I think Miami is one of the teams, one of the few teams in the league: Miami, denver, there are only a few of them, who have a really strong identity, and they play with it every night. They are super committed to it.

“And, for us, our identity has kind of faded all year. We’ve been trying to figure out who we are, because I think we’re a great, talented scoring team, but when we’re not shooting, we have to rely on our defense, and our defense is not consistent every night.

“So, playing against a team that is very consistent and disciplined, we have problems.”

The Celtics have certainly struggled over the past week. They have gone from the top of jayson tatum scoring 51 points to eliminate their oldest rivals, the Philadelphia 76ersin the Eastern semifinals, to lose two straight games at home to Miami to start this series with implosions in the fourth quarter before being ejected from the Kaseya Center on Sunday night in Game 3 under an avalanche of Heat shots.

After Sunday’s demoralizing loss, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla admitted that Boston’s defense has regressed. After ranking second in the regular season, the defense is allowing three more points per 100 possessions in the postseason and has slipped to 10th among playoff teams. Brogdon said on Monday that the team has not been defensively consistent in 2022-23, and that the problems that began to arise against the atlanta falcons and the 76ers in the first two rounds of the playoffs are now coming back to haunt the Celtics.

“We haven’t been consistently good defensively all year, and that was the identity of the team last year,” Brogdon said. “I think that’s gotten away from us. We’ve had streaks where we’ve been very good defensively, but not consistently.

“And honestly, we’ve struggled in every series we’ve played. So now we’re playing against a team that plays like it’s the best team in the league, and they’re incredibly disciplined, incredibly consistent.” And I think we’ve had problems with teams that are consistent possession-for-possession every night.”

The Celtics have struggled with just about everything in this series. jaylen brown he’s shooting 37% from the field and 2-for-20 from 3. As a team, Boston is shooting under 30% from behind the arc.

The most telling stat about the Celtics’ season is that they’re 36-2 when they hit at least 40% of their 3-pointers, and 29-31 when they shoot below that, as they’ve done in all three games this season. this series.

All of that is in the rearview mirror now for the Celtics, who face the same uphill battle as their eternal rivals in the West, the los angeles lakersDo against the Nuggets: Try to become the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series to advance.

Of the previous 149 teams at that position that failed, only three forced a seventh game.

But Mazzulla said he and his players need to focus on the task at hand: getting a win to extend this series by another game and another 48 hours.

“That’s the opportunity we have,” Mazzulla said. “We have to do that. We can’t get caught up worrying about the task at hand. And if we don’t deal with one game, then the other games don’t matter.”

“So we just have to have a narrow-minded approach on that.”

Boston will have to do much better defensively than it did in Game 3. The Celtics allowed the Heat to shoot 57% overall, go 19-of-35 from 3-point range, and crush them in what was essentially a 48-minute game. celebration of Miami’s amazing change over the past few weeks.

The Heat, who followed the Bulls Within the last three minutes of the second play-in game here, after losing to Atlanta in the first, also at home, they are just one win away from the NBA Finals. If Miami gets there, it will have toppled the teams with the top two records in the league, milwaukee and boston

But until the Celtics lose a fourth time, they’re still, at least technically, alive. And, Brogdon said, at some point there has to be a team to pull off the best comeback. That’s what Boston hopes can lead to a first win in this series.

“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s the approach you have to take.

“We still believe that we are the best team. We have not played like this in these three games. But there is always a first.”