Analysis: The Celtics gave their all, but could not beat the Heat

The Celtics' season came to a heart-wrenching end after losing game seven of the Eastern Conference finals to the Miami Heat last night at the Garden, 132-84. And with that, so did the C's chances of making history as the first team in the NBA to win a series after being down three games to nothing. GBH's Esteban Bustillos was at the game and joined Morning Edition hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel to talk about it on Tuesday morning. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Jeremy Siegel: So first off, before we get into everything that went wrong, there were quite a few celebrity sightings last night. There were a bunch of former Celtics.

Esteban Bustillos: Yeah, there were. Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo, I think I saw a couple more.

Paris Alston: Trying to bring some of that '08 championship magic into the building.

Bustillos: For as big of the comparisons about the '04 Red Sox were, there were not as many as I thought. They had Kevin Millar on video, I don't know if he was there in person. So that that was a little odd.

Siegel: I also saw Donnie Wahlberg was there, 21 Savage, Aly Raisman, the Olympic gymnast. Before we do get into the game itself, being there in the company of all of these people, what was it like inside of the Garden, before things even got started?

Bustillos: The energy was high. The energy was super high. As I mentioned about the '04 Red Sox comparisons, pre-game they had a hype video with a montage of some of the best moments from the '04 ALCS. Paul Pierce was just on the court, just impromptu hyping the crowd up. I mean, this was 30 minutes before the game. The whole place was hyped and then the game started.

Alston: And what happened from there?

Bustillos: It was really just the first possession. Jayson Tatum went up for a layup, drew contact with Miami's Gabe Vincent. He came down on his foot. Now, anyone who knows, who's ever played basketball, knows that when your foot lands on their player's foot, that's it. That's a graveyard for healthy ankles. And he just immediately was down in pain. There was a nervous murmur that spread throughout TD Garden. He did a pretty good job, I would say, of disguising that pain, but he just wasn't himself for the rest of the night. And Boston's groove was thrown off. Afterwards, Tatum walked with a limp in the press room.

Jayson Tatum [previously recorded]: It, you know, kind of impacted me. The rest of the night it swelled up and it was just frustrating. And I was kind of like a shell of myself. It's tough to move.

Siegel: So I didn't stay up to watch the game because Paris and I are on the air super early here. Paris actually did watch, which maybe she's regretting. So I've heard a little bit about this game. I mean, I know losing Tatum was big, but Boston only trailed by ten going into the fourth quarter. So what happened there?

Bustillos: Yeah. So given the situation they were in with their best player essentially playing on one leg, Boston did a pretty good job of putting up a fight through three quarters. They actually outscored Miami 25-to-24 in that third quarter. The start of the fourth, though, Miami went on a 7-0 run, Boston was down 17, and that's just too hard of a hole to come out of. Boston, they played in hot spurts throughout the game, but Miami consistently hit shots, especially from three-point range, where they were 14 of 28, the Celtics were 9 of 42 from three. Boston would sometimes rush shots, they would look flustered on offense, and the offense just wasn't there. Jaylen Brown, who we're going to talk about a lot, he was 8 of 23 from the field for just 19 points and he just had a bad night when Boston needed him the most with Jayson Tatum, basically, again, just playing on one foot.

Jaylen Brown [previously recorded]: You know, my team turned to me to make plays and etc., and I came up short. I failed. And it's tough. You know, I give credit to Miami, but just a terrible job.

Alston: So there's no question here that the Celtics lost a key link in the chain with Jayson Tatum and the ankle injury. And I think there's a lot of speculation about how if only that hadn't happened. But at the same time, we've got to remember that Boston was clawing itself out of a 3-0 hole running into this game. So you're having to give 110% for four games in a row. So how much of this is that part of it?

Bustillos: I mean, it's definitely part of it, right? There's a reason the Celtics were only the fourth team in NBA history to even be in that position, coming down from 3-0 to tie up the series. But, you know, you never want to put yourself in a position where you have to be perfect or where your health has to be perfect, to when you want to give yourself a little bit of room for error. And being 3-0, there is no more room for error. Al Horford said that they kind of had to play with desperation in the series after falling down the way they did.

Al Horford [previously recorded]: There's a lot that goes into it physically, emotionally. There's a lot that goes into it and you get to this point and you still have to play another game. You still have to win another game. And trust me, every guy in the locker room, we wanted it really, really bad. And, you know, it's tough. But as hard as it is, you know, we have to learn from this.

Siegel: Let's talk a little bit about learning from this, because going into the season, the C's were favored by a lot of people to make another run at the championship after getting to the finals last year. Where do they go from here?

Bustillos: I think one of the big questions is what do they do with Jaylen Brown? He's going to be owed a supermax contract because he made an All-NBA team that would be up to $295 million. That's a lot of money. Will the Celtics want to pay that? Will they want to trade him? For people who want to trade him, my question would be, are you really ready to break up one of the best duos in the NBA with Tatum and Brown over the course of these past few years, even with how his season, especially at the end, went?

Alston: So lastly here, Esteban, we've got to talk about Joe Mazzulla, because he obviously was the coach here. But he was sort of thrown into this position because of what happened with former coach Ime Udoka. And I think there's been a lot of questions about whether he rose to the occasion.

Bustillos: I would say there is that question, are they going to keep him? My question would be, again, to your point, he's learned a lot. He was put in a bad position. Can he learn from these mistakes going forward? And if you go and get a new coach, is that going to fix all your problems? That would be the fourth coach for the Celtics in four years. That's just not something that most franchises that are looking to win a championship would do. They need to find some consistency.

Siegel: Esteban, before we officially say goodbye, Nuggets or Heat?

Bustillos: Nuggets in six.

Alston: And get some dipping sauce.