BOSTON — When Sam Hauser shot 1-for-18 a few weeks ago, Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was excited for him. This was a moment to savor, a failure that was an opportunity for growth.
“I texted him after the 1-for-18 game and said, ‘The ultimate compliment is you got to miss 12 3s in an NBA game, that’s a huge positive. You have to look at it that way,’” Mazzulla said.
It can be easy to crater when you’re a shooter off the bench for a 64-win team. And as the Miami Heat were scoring right through Hauser in Sunday’s Game 1 of their first-round playoff series, he was bricking wide-open 3s. The Celtics were finding ways to work past Miami’s zone defense late in the first quarter, but Hauser was leaving them empty-handed. The Heat, without the injured Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier, had nearly erased the early lead Boston carved out with its 14-0 run to open the playoffs.
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