Kristaps Porzingis sank a three from the right wing to give the Boston Celtics a 73-53 lead over the New York Knicks with 3:12 remaining in the third quarter of Wednesday's Game 2. Porzingis' triple was Boston's last bucket of the frame and the beginning of the end for all things good.
By the time the third quarter buzzer went off, Boston was up just 12 points over New York. Almost half of the lead they'd spent the entire quarter building had disappeared in just over three minutes.
Whether you want to attribute it to the ball not bouncing their way, or bad luck, the fact remains that the Celtics missed their chance for a "killshot" in those final three minutes.
It started when they squandered a two-on-one fastbreak chance created by a Jayson Tatum steal. He and Jaylen Brown lost the ball out of bounds, leaving two points on the board. On the very next possession, Boston whiffed on three great chances to put the ball in the basket. Derrick White missed two open looks from beyond the arc and Kristaps Porzingis threw the putback dunk attempt off of the rim.
Mazzulla says lack of execution put pressure on Boston's defense.
According to Head Coach Joe Mazzulla, this was the stretch that helped spark New York's second straight 20-point comeback.
"We had good intentions, we just didn't execute, and that puts pressure on the times where we gave up transition and stuff," he explained at Thursday's availability. "But you go up 20, and we have a transition turnover, we have a tip dunk that we don't get, and we miss two open looks."
The missed dunk, combined with some other late turnovers gave the Knicks the chance to gain momentum by scoring in transition. They tallied five of their eight points at the end of the frame this way.
Everyone is going to remember the 13-straight misses in the fourth quarter, but the problem spanned back a bit further than that.
Closing quarters is an extremely important part of playing winning basketball. It's an opportunity to put a stamp on the winning and impactful basketball that you've played so far.
In Game 2, the Celtics were horrible in the final three minutes of each quarter. The Knicks outscored them by 14 points, and forced them to commit a total of seven turnovers in these spans.
This should serve as a reminder that NBA games are riddled with "clutch" moments. Just because the game isn't in the fourth quarter doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities to make winning plays. There's a pretty fair chance that if Boston managed to keep the lead to 20 or 18 points, they would've been able to better deal with the pressure that New York put on them in the fourth.
Mind you, the Celtics have NOT been good in the traditional clutch, which the NBA defines as when a game is within five points in its final five minutes, in this series. They currently have a net rating of -59.5 during those moments.
If the Celtics are going to have any hope of coming back in this series, they're going to have to be better in the key moments throughout these games. So far they've been a defibrillator for the Knicks at times when they've been on life support.