Celtics come out 'too cool' in 2nd half of Game 1 loss to Heat - ESPN

BOSTON — At halftime of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, things looked pretty darned good for the Boston Celtics. They'd controlled the paint, taken care of the ball and made shots, and as a result they had a 66-57 lead over the Miami Heat 24 minutes into this best-of-seven affair.

Then the third quarter started. And, yet again, the Dr. Jekyll version of Boston disappeared and the Mr. Hyde version took over.

By the time those 12 minutes had expired, the game had been turned on its head. The Heat had outscored the Celtics 46-25, turning a nine-point deficit into a 12-point lead, and Miami was on its way to a stunning 123-116 win to steal back home-court advantage in this series and leave the second-seeded Celtics reeling from how quickly things got away from them.

«It's a choice. It's a decision,» Jaylen Brown said when asked what happened in the second half. «Just come out and play with a different mentality. We came out too cool. It was just almost like we were just playing a regular-season game. It's the Eastern Conference finals. Like, come on.

»We've got to play with more intensity than we did today. We've just got to be better, including me."

If there was something that could have shifted from the first half to the second, it did. Boston had 15 assists and five turnovers in the first half; it had seven assists and 10 turnovers in the second. On the other side, Miami took much better care of the ball, going from nine assists and 11 turnovers in the first half to 11 assists and four turnovers in the second.

The Celtics dominated points in the paint in the first half, outscoring the Heat 40-16. In the second half, Miami edged Boston 24-22. There was a similar change in second-chance points, for which Boston had