There have been some really gross basketball games during the 2022 NBA playoffs, and for 24 minutes, it seemed like Game 5 between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals was going to be the worst of the bunch. Miami took a 40-37 lead into the locker room after neither team eclipsed the 20-point mark in the first quarter. Makes were hard to come by for both squads, and the Celtics seemed like their gameplan was to turn the ball over as often as they possible could.
Boston would go on to win, 93-80, to take a 3-2 series lead. It still wasn’t especially pretty, but the Celtics figured some stuff out in the second half and are now one win away from the NBA Finals. And in the aftermath, Jaylen Brown gave a pretty blunt answer about how the game was a story of two halves.
“First half was sh*t,” Brown said, per Jay King of The Athletic. “Threw it away. Came out and played basketball in the second half.”
Jayson Tatum, meanwhile, gave a glimpse into the halftime conversation, in which the team discussed the importance of more intangible things.
“Basically just talked about how much does it mean to us,” Tatum said. “We know all the plays and things like that, but saw the 50/50 balls and hustle plays and things like that are about toughness and effort. That’s what we talked about, us playing better, taking care of the ball, just competing. Because we know what’s on the line.”
Boston will look to close out the series on Friday night.
