The Celtics are giving the red-hot Heat credit, but no one is playing the disaster card

BOSTON — Given the way the Miami Heat went about their business on Wednesday — making a franchise-high 23 3-pointers in a 111-101 victory over the Celtics at TD Garden — it was only natural that Celtics coach Joe Mazzula would be asked a flurry of questions about Miami’s three-point streak.

And that’s exactly what happened, as Mazzula was questioned about the sheer volume of 3-point attempts the Heat were able to generate — 43 of them! — and what can be done about it as the series, already deadlocked at win-each, moves to Miami on Saturday night.

But Mazzula was then delivered a Hallmark greeting card by a reporter who wondered if losing a playoff game could be good something, what with the possibility of, you know, facing some adversity.

Mazoula would have been excused if he had chosen to shoot this one out of a cannon. Instead, he chose diplomacy.

“The thing you’re going to go through in a playoff run, however long it goes … it’s unfortunate that losing a game is unfortunate,” he responded. “That’s just the nature of the playoffs.”

Now, make no mistake: If the Celtics continue to destroy a worthy Western Conference opponent in the NBA Finals, there’s a good chance someone in a green championship jersey will return to that late April night at TD Garden when the Celtics lost Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Miami. There will be grand speeches at the rally about how the Celtics came together as a team after that game and how they—wait, wait—overcame adversity.

But that is all later, assuming there is a later. Here and now, the Celtics need to dispatch the undermanned Heat as precisely and quickly as possible, all the better to prepare for tougher battles ahead. And if the Celtics want to make history, they need to know their history. They should know that last year a fearless edition of the Heat upset the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. And the Celtics don’t need to be reminded that they lost to the Heat in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals — after winning three straight to even the series and then getting blown out in Game 7.

So, no, the Celtics shouldn’t learn from adversity. Where you go, I return from there.

But perhaps they should really be reminded that in preparation for Game 2 on Wednesday, the Heat turned what was about to become a complete loss to the Celtics into a closer one than it should have been thanks to strong fourth quarter.

The fact is, the Celtics didn’t learn anything Wednesday night except that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra came up with a game plan to get his players to shoot a lot of 3s, and that said, the players executed that game plan in an extremely fun way way (if you’re not a Celtics fan). Triplets in a vacuum are quite beautiful, but a triplet parade is pure magic. And with seven Miami players connecting on 3-pointers, including six from Tyler Hero and five from Caleb Martin, that’s a ton of magic.

As the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown said, not incorrectly, “I think they’re well-coached … put together a good game plan for them and felt confident and went out and executed it.”

Jayson Tatum said, also not wrongly, “The playoffs are about making adjustments from game to game, and they did that.”

Brown (33 points) and Tatum (28 points) were the most productive in the meeting. One would think that these two Celtics veterans would lead Boston to an easy win based on what they were doing in the first half. Tatum was a real smorgasbord early on, like when he dug through the paint like he was going for a first down on third-and-6 to give the Celtics an early 6-4 lead … or when he took a running alley-oop from Brown and hit it home to make it 11-9 … or when he hit nothing but net up the middle from 27 feet out to make it 14-9 … or when he hit a pretty disappearing jumper in the second quarter. As for Brown, he went on a tear in the final few minutes of the first half, including three 3-pointers and a run.

DYNAMIC ALLEY 😤 pic.twitter.com/7rLEKaDHgL

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 24, 2024

But the Heat connected on 13 3-pointers in the first half.

It’s worth noting that there weren’t many boos from Celtics fans in the final minutes of the game. Oh, there was leather liver here and there, but nothing in the way of a chorus. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Perhaps Celtics fans were thinking along the lines of Brown and Tatum. The heat became great. And maybe they recognize that this is a different Celtics team with the addition of Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, not that Porzingis was much of a factor Wednesday night, and last year was last year.

But this could get ugly if the Celtics don’t destroy Miami. Overcoming adversity is so 2023.

(Photo of Caleb Martin making a 3-pointer over Sam Houser: David Butler II / USA Today)