Game 7 takeaways: C's comeback bid ends with blowout loss to Heat originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Celtics will not go down as the first team in NBA history to come back from down 0-3 in a playoff series.
That dream ended Monday night with a devastating loss in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Despite playing in front of an electrifying TD Garden crowd, the Celtics looked sluggish from the opening tip and failed to find their groove as they fell to the Miami Heat in blowout fashion, 103-84.
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The Heat will move on to face the Denver Nuggets in the 2023 NBA Finals, which begin Thursday night. Meanwhile, the C's will begin another long offseason of wondering what could have been.
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Here are three quick takeaways from the Celtics' crushing Game 7 defeat.
Death comes in 3s
The Celtics' "live by the 3, die by the 3" approach cost them on several occasions during the 2022-23 season. It came back to bite them again at the most inopportune time.
Boston attempted a whopping 21 3-pointers in the first half and hit only four of them. The team started 0-for-12 from beyond the arc and did not convert a 3 until Al Horford finally ended the cold streak in the second quarter.
Things didn't get any better in the second half as the C's finished a putrid 9-of-42 (21.4 percent) from deep. The Heat, meanwhile, shot 8-of-16 from deep in the first half and finished 14-of-28.
That was the difference in not only Game 7, but the entire series. The Celtics shot an uncharacteristic 30.9 percent (81-267) from 3 in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Heat, a terrible 3-point shooting team during the regular season, shot 43.4 percent.
Brown struggles after Tatum injury
The Celtics' first possession of Game 7 set the tone for the rest of the night. Jayson Tatum (14 points, 11 rebounds) tweaked his ankle on a layup and although he remained in the game, he was clearly bothered by the injury. The four-time All-Star sat for the final 4:11 of the first quarter and could be seen grimacing throughout the night.
With Tatum not operating at 100 percent, the Celtics needed Jaylen Brown to step up. Unfortunately, a rough series for the second-team All-NBA selection only got worse.
Brown dropped a team-high 19 points but shot a dismal 8-of-23 from the floor, including 1-of-9 from 3. He had eight of the Celtics' 15 turnovers and looked off defensively from start to finish.
The Celtics now must decide whether to give Brown the $ 295 million supermax contract this summer. What once was considered a no-brainer may be a hotly debated topic over the next couple of months.
Caleb Martin finishes off stellar series
Jimmy Butler won the 2023 Eastern Conference MVP award, but the Heat won this series because of their role players. More specifically, they pulled it off because Caleb Marin reached another level.
Martin, an undrafted forward out of Nevada, was the hero for Miami all series long and he capped it off with an outstanding Game 7. He helped the Heat pull away early on with 14 points in the first half and there was nothing Boston could do to slow him down.
He finished with 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting (4-6 3-PT) and brought down 10 boards. For the series, he averaged 19.3 points, 6.4 rebounds while shooting a ridiculous 60.2 percent from the floor. There is an argument to be made that he deserved ECF MVP honors over Butler.
