NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HEAT VS. CELTICS

May 29, 2023

Al Horford

Boston Celtics

Game 7: Postgame

Miami Heat 103, Boston Celtics 84

Q. With what you guys have been able to accomplish in Game 6, the way you won Game 6, how disappointing, frustrating was it the way you guys came out? As you get older how tough is it to bow out at this point?

AL HORFORD: Well, obviously very disappointing for our group. We had very high hopes, high expectations. Especially after a game like that. We felt like we had momentum and an opportunity. The guys in the locker room, I believe gave it their all. We gave it our all.

This was a very hard series. To go down in the hole 3-0 in that way, there's a lot that goes to it. It's not only physical I feel like, it's emotional. It's very draining. I feel like tonight we kind of felt it a little bit. It was a lot. We had opportunities, we just couldn't get it going.

But more than anything I'm proud of the group. I'm proud of the group, of the growth of our team this year, the type of guys that we have, the leaders that we have in that locker room. It's obviously very disappointing for us right now.

Q. Seemed like a lot of players didn't think you guys found the consistency you needed to this year. How do you evaluate the consistency the team played with this year, and why do you think you might not have been as consistent?

AL HORFORD: I'm not going to get caught up in consistency questions and things like that. We have a good group. We had a lot going on this year. Our guys should hold their heads high because we had a lot of adversity. In that locker room we dealt with a lot of things. Our group was very professional all year, worked really hard.

It's disappointing that we didn't get our results. We failed. We failed. Because we wanted to win a championship. That was our goal. But despite that I'm very proud of that group because there was never any excuse. We went through ups and downs, but we stuck with it. So right now I feel like we want solutions and sometimes you kind of have to step back and look at the work and that's just not going to happen right now in the heat of the moment.

Q. Is that the key, just step back after this, is that kind of how you guys --

AL HORFORD: I think we have to look at it. Everybody will look at it individually and I'm sure that our management will assess things and we'll go from there. But to judge right now, I don't think it's fair to this group of guys.

Q. During a timeout there, I forget exactly where it was in the game, you sat down, seemed like you were telling everybody to just kind of calm down and relax. What were you seeing in that moment as the game seemed like it was at a critical point where the game was starting to get away?

AL HORFORD: When was that?

Q. I don't know if it was the beginning of the fourth quarter or after like the early timeout in the beginning of the fourth quarter, you sat down and were trying to talk to everybody. What were you seeing in that moment from the guys and how did the game just kind of get away from you at that point?

AL HORFORD: It's tough because I feel, I felt like this game we had the right intentions a lot of the time. We were making the right plays offensively, shots just weren't falling. We kept it together for, I think for most of it. Then in the beginning of that fourth I feel like guys finally kind of started getting discouraged. So, at that moment I wanted to bring the group in, I wanted us to get going. We needed to find ourselves, because that was the -- maybe it was a couple other times, but that was like really the first time I felt us really go down. And we had a lot of game left to play and I didn't want us to feel bad about ourselves.

So, I felt like that was a critical point. We had a few turnovers there. We just couldn't kind of muster anything going.

Q. I know you just, you said a lot about like letting things sit. But this is a team that just lost three home games in a seven-game series. Is there, what's the main lesson, I guess, to take out of losing the series in this fashion, losing these games at home?

AL HORFORD: Yeah, this is difficult because this building for so many years has been so special. It's very disappointing losing these games here. We talked about it as a group, about ways to coming out and having that edge at home and being great and getting the crowd to rally behind us.

I feel like for whatever reason we always felt coming back here it was kind of our safe haven, that we were going to be fine. I'm not going to say that that's -- but I definitely think that for whatever reason we just kind of let loose a little bit at times here at home, just thinking that we'll be fine and we'll kind of find our way. That's something that we'll have to look at and make sure that we shift that mindset of protecting home, kind of being more aggressive, being more -- because on the road I feel like there's that edge that we have. We have to be consistent in that. That's something that we have to be better at.

Q. What did it take to even get yourselves into this position to have this opportunity for tonight and then just how insanely difficult is it to win four straight games under those conditions?

AL HORFORD: Yeah, no, it's very difficult. It's a mindset. You have to play with a certain edge and kind of desperation. Because we let ourselves get into that hole. I just think that there's a lot that goes into it. Physically, emotionally there's a lot that goes into it. You get to this point and you still have to play another game and you still have to win another game.

Trust me, every guy in the locker room, we wanted it really, really bad. It's tough. But as hard as it is, we have to learn from this. It's not easy right now, but it's something that we have to learn as a group.

Q. I guess the theme of this team will be if you guys didn't have the lackadaisical stretch, didn't play with your food sometimes, you guys would have went to the Finals, potentially won it. How do you change that? How do you take everything seriously, not you personally, but the team, everything seriously for 48 minutes? Because this was supposed to be the season - unfinished business, guys got a bad taste in your mouth, and you fell short mainly because of losing the first two games at home. How to you change that and get your focus?

AL HORFORD: That was, you know, that was terrible. Losing those first two games at home just puts you in such a hole. It just changes everything. To your point, that's a really good question because we addressed a lot of those things and right now I don't have the answer for you. We addressed a lot of them, especially after the Philly series and even the Atlanta series. We were like, hey, we have to be better, we have to do these things. And it's something that continues to happen. It's a pattern that happens with us. We're going to have to do some soul searching there because some things have to change in that regard. We had a great opportunity, to your point, and we failed. That definitely has something to do with it.