As things began to unravel for the Boston Celtics in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night, they fell back into old habits.
Chief among them was getting too caught up in the officiating, as the Warriors pulled away over the final 12 minutes to secure a 104-94 victory at Chase Center and seize a 3-2 series lead.
Less than three minutes into the final frame, Marcus Smart was hit with a technical foul when he wasn’t happy that he didn’t receive a call. One second on the game clock later, Smart committed another foul, grazing Jordan Poole in the face while trying to ward off the pesky Warriors guard following the in-bounds pass.
Veteran Al Horford tried to come over to settle down Smart, but the damage had already been done as the Celtics lost their focus and centered it on the referees instead of the task at hand.
“Not our best moment,” Horford told reporters following the game. “As you guys know, I feel we’ve been able to fend those things off, especially throughout the playoffs. For whatever reason tonight I feel like it got to us. And it’s one of those things that we were able to focus back in, but we can never let that get to us. We can’t let that affect our game, the way that things are being played. We feel like we can control a lot of those things, and it’s something that we have to move on and be better on Thursday.”
The Celtics were visibly upset with the officiating at many points in the fourth quarter, including Celtics coach Ime Udoka having an exchange with referee Tony Brothers.
“He didn’t like how I pointed at him,” Udoka said of his discussion with Brothers.
Udoka had been assessed a technical foul earlier in the game, and he admitted the Celtics got too caught up in the calls instead of just playing through it.
“I think it was a little bit of that throughout the game, so not necessarily only in the fourth,” Udoka said. “Probably something we shouldn’t do as much, and we all did too much.”
