Celtics
INDIANAPOLIS — It didn’t take long for the anger in Rick Carlisle’s voice to surface during his postgame press conference.
The Pacers blew a late fourth-quarter lead for the second time in three games, and the mere mention of how Indiana lost Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals after being up 8 with less than three minutes to go irked him.
Carlisle waved his hand and cut off the first question after his opening statement before it was finished.
“I just watched the ending,” Carlisle said. “So, You don’t need to remind me. I saw everything that happened. Everything. Everything. Everything that happened, yeah. Anybody else?”
The Pacers have no choice but to come at the Celtics even harder in Game 4, Carlisle said. They are in a position no team in NBA history has ever come back from, trailing Boston 3-0.
Carlisle was asked why he believes his group is capable of making the comeback.
“We’ve got to look at what’s in front of us,” Carlisle said. “We’ve got the best fans in the NBA here, we’ve got the greatest basketball building on the planet, and we’ve got another game in front of them to go after those guys, and believe me when I tell you we are going after them.”
Though the Pacers are one game away from elimination and could potentially be without star guard Tyrese Haliburton again Monday night, Carlisle did not have the look of a man who was ready to quit. He was furious, yet resolved to bring about a different outcome.
Guard TJ McConnell said the team is carrying the same mindset into Game 4.
“Obviously, this one stings,” McConnell said. “But, there’s no guy in this locker room that has packed it in. We’re going to try to get one here and extend this series and then go back to Boston and try to make things difficult. There’s no guy in this locker room that’s going to quit, I’ll tell you that much.”
Jayson Tatum missed a layup in the final seconds that gave Indiana one last chance to score. Andrew Nembhard rebounded the miss with just under 10 seconds to go and raced up the floor where he was eventually stripped by Jrue Holiday.
Holiday, who applied full-court pressure on Nembhard, lost his footing at the 3-point line but was able to put a hand on the floor and keep himself from falling. He recovered in time to slide in front of Nembhard and poke the ball away.
“I tried to get a shot up and he got in front of me. I lost the ball, slipped, turnover,” Nembhard said.
Carlisle was asked why he did not call timeout in that situation. He opted to let the Pacers play without setting up a designed play and Holiday made Indiana pay for it.
“Eight or nine seconds left and you’re in transition after a miss,” Carlisle said. “I trust our players to be able to create a better shot than calling a timeout and having them set their defense and run their end of game stuff on their video and show their players. It’s more of a play basketball type situation and we’ve done well this year, trusting our players.”
The Celtics snapped Indiana’s 11-game home win streak, which included six postseason victories. Beating the Celtics four times in a row would be a tall task. Pascal Siakam said he’s taking things one game at a time, starting with Monday night.
“It’s a must win for us. We’ve got to give everything that we have,” Siakam said. “Obviously to this point we’ve had an incredible season and nobody wants to see it end, so we’re going to fight until the end. And then, for the guys, it’s like, let’s get one game. We can’t look ahead. Whatever is in front of us doesn’t matter. We’ve got to focus on the next game and give everything that we have to win that game.”
With Haliburton out, Indiana focused on winning the inside battle, outscoring Boston 68-40 in the paint and outrebounding Boston 43-36. Siakam and Myles Turner scored 22 points apiece.
Nembhard and T.J. McConnell played significantly higher minutes than their postseason averages and scored a combined 55 points with 15 assists as they attempted to pick up the slack from Haliburton’s absence.
Indiana had a 12-point halftime lead and led by as many as 18 before Boston was able to adjust and slow the Pacers down in the second half.
“We had a lot of guys stepping up into bigger minutes in Tyrese’s absence,” Carlisle said. “And so it was slowed down a little bit down the stretch and that’s the time of game where we were set up right now and got to keep tempo in the game.
“That’s something we’ve got to do, and we missed some shots and there were some plays where it could have gone a different way. That’s the best I can say it. Just very disappointed, but this group, the way they’re battling, we’re going to come at these guys harder on Monday.”
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