The Boston Celtics took the first hit in their Eastern Conference finals series against the Miami Heat, dropping Game 1 at TD Garden.
They’re ready to respond, however, with one role player becoming the latest to add to the list of motivational outlooks.
“We’ve got to be down for one another,” Malcolm Brogdon told NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin. “‘Ride or die,’ that’s really the term that comes to mind — ready to go to war. This series is a war. This is a physical, really excellent team that we’re playing, but we’re an excellent team. We have to remember that. We believe that we’re the best team in the league, so we have to remember that every night.”
The Celtics have struggled to keep a sense of urgency when their backs aren’t against the wall, with Game 1 being an encapsulation of their season-long mentality.
Boston has admitted to as much, with Jaylen Brown saying he didn’t like the energy put forth in Game 1, Marcus Smart admitting to the troubling season-long trend, Jayson Tatum knowing exactly what went wrong in his postgame presser and Robert Williams III topping it off with message about the C’s bad habits.
The C’s know they aren’t going about it the right way, so why aren’t they fixing it?
Well, they’re planning to.
“I think we have to rely on our maturity and our poise,” Brogdon said. “I think we’ve been battle-tested. I think this is a battle-tested team from last year, making it to the finals, going through the gauntlet that the guys did. This year having a target on our backs, having that run, teams play us like we won a championship. We’ve been through battles, had ups and downs, guys have gone in and out of the lineup, these guys have experienced through a coaching change. There’s been some serious adversity for this team, so I think we have to rely on that, remember that and put it to the test.”
