SIXERS CAME UP BIG AND CELTS SOUND LIKE THEY KNOW THE SERIES IS OVER!
By Harvey Hoffman
The Celtics offense was missing in action in their Game 5 loss to the Sixers.
And Marcus Smart opened up.
“Everything,” Smart said. “Everything went wrong. They made every right play. They made every hustle play. Everything went wrong for us that can go wrong.”
With a quick turnaround before Game 6, Smart acknowledged there was some shock in the locker room.
“We’re disappointed,” Smart said. “We’re definitely disappointed. We’re disappointed in the way the way we played, for sure. The effort. That’s just not who we are. So we were very disappointed but the good thing about it is you can’t get too high, you can’t get too low. Like I said, we have another game so there’s no need and there’s no will for us to feel sorry for ourselves. We got to just go out there.”
Coach Joe Mazzulla wasn’t sure what caused the Celtics struggles from an effort standpoint but thought the team may have been pressing too much in the loss, which backfired from a execution standpoint.
“I think when you have the intentions of really, really wanting to win, it doesn’t work out very well sometimes,” Mazzulla said. “I thought we had the intentions of really, really wanting to win and trying to win it, and sometimes when that happens, it has a negative effect. I think we just have to play with a freer mind, take a deep breath, and regardless of the situation, we just have to be ready to play.”
Only 18 percent of teams in NBA history have come back from a 3-2 series deficit and Boston will try to do it again for the second straight year on Thursday night.
“It’s easy,” Smart said of bouncing back. “Been there before. It’s one game at a time. So they’re feeling good. We got to go into a hostile environment and we got to just go take it, it’s not going to be easy. It’s going be a dogfight. And it’s who wants it more?”
