Hey Celtics, Please Cut The Shit And Stop Losing To Dogshit Teams
I thought after trying to get some sleep that I would wake up and not be as angry, but I’m still fairly annoyed with our beloved Celtics. It’s pretty frustrating that the one thing they’ve been consistent at is being inconsistent. Last night’s loss to the Magic, which was their second this season and 7th loss to a team under .500 is simply inexcusable. Even though I am fully aware of the #1 rule when it comes to this team, that they refuse to make things easy on themselves, that doesn’t mean they can be let off the hook for their performance in Florida these past two games. This entire season it’s been the same thing, one step forward, two steps back. Look great for stretches, look like a team that has never played basketball for stretches. Lose to teams that have no business winning, fight each other in timeouts, and now last night’s disaster I think we can all agree that this team still has a lonnnnnnnnnnng way to go until their problems are solved. Here we are, over halfway through the season and we’re still seeing the same sort of shit that was unacceptable in November so that’s not exactly ideal. It’s almost as if their previous struggles and inconsistencies haven’t shown to be a wakeup call and that’s what is most concerning. This team has a body of work that proves to be successful, there is plenty of film showing them how they have to play in order to be the team we all envision them of being. But too often they are reverting back to their bad habits, can’t put together a full 48 minute effort, and guys still are basically saying fuck the gameplan I’m going to do my own thing. That is maddening on about a billion different levels.
What’s probably the most frustrating is the fact that teams around them are keeping the door open for the Celts to make a run up the standings, they are being gifted with a light stretch of their schedule and they cannot seem to get out of their own way. I just don’t understand why we are seeing this team not play hard all the time. You hear about how guys are unhappy with their roles and whatnot, but frankly I don’t give a shit. Just because you are coming off the bench doesn’t mean you can just decide to take plays off. How is that helpful to anyone? But this isn’t just a player issue, to me it’s a Brad issue as well. Can we get this team ready to play please? If something is showing to not be working at a certain stretch during a game, can he please have the balls to make a quick adjustment even if it means playing his starters more than he wants? It’s pretty simple, if someone is dogging it or playing selfish basketball, take them the fuck out. Instead, we’re seeing him leave guys in way too long to the point where their damage cannot be overcome. Minutes should be a privilege not a right, and right now he’s every bit to blame for what we’re seeing recently as the players. Where is Mad Brad?
Are the Celtics cooked? Technically no. They are only 3 losses behind IND for the 3 seed with 40 games left. But the facts are this team has not been able to figure things out despite everything we’ve already seen so far this season. Last night the bench let them down in a big way, and for a team who was supposed to thrive on their depth, that’s inexcusable. Their bench is filled with what was supposed to be starter quality talent and they looked like G-League players last night. I’m just sick of watching this team piss down their own leg against horrible competition. You add bad losses to all the drama we already have, and that’s the recipe for an explosion. You saw it with Kyrie last night, he’s as sick of this shit as the rest of us.
So please, cut the shit. Man the hell up and accept your role because that’s the reality. Play hard, be consistent, and for the love of God beat bad teams, it’s not that hard. Everyone else seems to be able to do it and they have half the talent. OK, you know the rules, we don’t run from moments like this, we talk through it and accept our medicine. Let’s get started.
The Good
– We’re at the point where I’m starting to feel bad for Kyrie. Here we have a guy who is busting his ass night in night out playing the best basketball of his career on both ends, and his teammates for the most part are letting him down. Last night he led the way with 25/5/6, had just 1 TO, and certainly held up his end of the bargain
Obviously, the story with him comes at the end of the game where he clearly was unhappy he didn’t get the last shot. You could see him arguing with Brad before they even came out of the huddle, and I would love to know what they were talking about. I saw some people on Twitter last night try and give him some flack for how this game went, and I just can’t go there. Kyrie has been everything they’ve needed him to be and more, and even if he had gotten the last shot and missed it wouldn’t have bothered me. This wasn’t a case where Kyrie was selfish and phased teammates out, he only took 16 FGA, was second on the team in deflections, and opponents shot a combined 3-7 against him. For a team that has been wildly inconsistent, that has not been a Kyrie issue.
– Ditto for Marcus Morris. Another 17/8 on 50% from both the floor and three, he;’s another guy I really feel for. He too is playing the best basketball of his career, he’s cut out his poor shot selection and has shown up each and every night.
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I find it pretty inexcusable Morris took just 2 FGA in the fourth quarter, and I can totally understand where his frustration is coming from as well. He’s made the committment on both ends, he plays hard at all times, and he doesn’t make excuses. There are three players who for me get a pass during all this bullshit, and he is for sure one of them. Scary to think where they would be if he wasn’t having a career year so far.
– The final player who gets a pass from me is Marcus Smart. Not just because his shooting has been legit ridiculous by his standards, but he’s another guy who actually tries every second he’s on the floor. After some issues defensively early in the year, he’s been fantastic as a starter and is a guy that has earned his opportunity. His decision making on the offensive end is so much better than what we’re used to seeing from him and to me that’s the key to his great season. We are seeing him take much better threes, attack the paint and use his size to find high percentage looks, and we all know what to expect from him on the defensive end.
– The efficiency was poor, but after a poor start (0-5) I thought Jayson Tatum did a good job of staying mentally strong and fighting through those early struggles. He went 6-11 from that moment which was good to see because so often we see him be completely useless once he has a slow start. That wasn’t the case here
– OK, that’s it. I tried to stretch the positives as far as I could. Let’s get to the real meat of this blog.
The Bad
– We can begin with Brad. If this were any other team in the league, and Celtics fans saw this type of performance, the first place we would point to would be the coach so why should it be any different here? Let’s start with how the Celtics opened this game. A cool 31/20% with 10 of their 22 FGA coming from behind the arc. I’m all for taking open threes if they are there, but once this team started to go scoreless for such a long stretch there was no timeout, there was no offense, there was no nothing. All we got was terrible shot selection by the second unit over the last 4 minutes. From 4:05 on, it was a combination of missed FTs, and a combined 0-5 from three. All while this team could not defend without fouling, gave ORL some life by having things be close despite their poor start, and honestly it was an omen for what was to come.
Then we had another reoccurring problem that makes no sense to me. Why is it that this team keeps coming out of halftime so flat? Where are the adjustments from Brad and why after we had a whole half of guys dogging it and not playing the right way is nothing ever fixed? They came out in that third quarter gave up 31 points on 55.6% shooting, had 4 TOs and just like that a positive second quarter was wasted. You could feel the momentum start to shift towards the end of that quarter which brought us to my biggest problem with Brad the entire night.
It was very clear that the unit that ended the third and started the fourth was blowing this game. The exact same thing happened against MIA, and he just sat there again and watched it happen. There were multiple instances where he could have taken a timeout during the ORL run to stop the momentum and remind his team how to play the right way. Maybe make a substitution given how bad everyone had been during that stretch. He didn’t until the lead was completely blown at 82-82 with 8:25 left and guess what it was too late. The Magic would take the lead immediately coming out of that timeout after a bad Theis three, and the rest was history.
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While the players deserve the majority of the criticism for what has gone on, Brad cannot get a pass. It’s his job to figure this out and put this team in a position to succeed, and he’s been failing in that regard.
– How is it possible you can have half the TOs, win the points in the paint battle, the second chance points battle, the fast break points battle, have a 12 point lead and be fairly even in the rebounding battle and still lose. That is so goddamn frustrating.
The Ugly
– I demand the second unit apologize to the starters. This loss is on them, every single last one of them (minus Timelord because he played 2 minutes). I mean look at this shit
On what planet is that acceptable behavior. They couldn’t outplay the fucking Magic? The starters did their job, they defended well, they did the job offensively, but every single time this team had to turn to the second unit for their shift, they essentially bombed. Let’s go through this one by one
The biggest culprit in my mind is obviously Terry. Second game in a row it was his stretch in those first four minutes of the fourth quarter that ultimately sunk this team. That’s extremely frustrating because he did this exact same shit against MIA. Like I don’t care that you aren’t starting, you have an important role on this team, and how can you justify having a bigger role when this team can’t rely on you to not completely sabotage everything the second you come in? His 0-5 -20 performance in just 17 minutes truly was the anchor that sank this ship, and I’m not being dramatic. This was how his shift went to start that fourth quarter
Rozier missed 27ft three
Morris missed layup
Rozier missed 25 ft three
Rozier turnover
Theis missed 25ft three
Smart missed 25ft three
Brown missed 4ft layup/oreb/putback
It was at the point where he basically was unplayable and that’s a huge problem.
Then we have Jaylen. One of the only bench guys that actually showed life on the offensive end with 13 points on 4-7 shooting, but that does not excuse his performance on the defensive end. When we hear from Al about this team being inconsistent in terms of their effort on both ends, he’s talking about Terry and Jaylen and I think that’s valid. Some may say this was another example of Jaylen not accepting his role, but I’m not sure that’s it. He was 3rd on this team in terms of usage rate at 20.7%, so it’s not as if they aren’t playing through him when he’s on the floor. To me, this was just a case of him being lazy and complacent which is a bigger issue in my opinion. He didn’t always fight through screens, he couldn’t defend without fouling and in the all important fourth quarter when this team really needed to defend, he had the highest Drtg on the roster at 146.2. That is unacceptable.
With Gordon Hayward, not only did he struggle going 3-9, but there was also a lack of playmaking. We’ve seen in the past when his shot hasn’t been falling that he at least creates for others. That was nowhere to be found in this game and he had just a 17.7% usage rate. Why is this team so stubborn when it comes to Hayward running the offense on this second unit? take the ball out of Terry’s hands, he’s proven his lack of passing awareness is a problem and fucking run things through Hayward. Run him in P&R, you got him to put the ball in his hands and he’s never going to be comfortable if his usage is inconsistent. Figure it out.
– To make matters worse, this team went 19-28 from the line which is a cool 67%. For a team who averages 80% from the line, you knew this was going to come back and bite them the moment they started missing all those FTs early. That’s how the Basketball Gods work and that’s exactly what happened. Kyrie/Hayward/Tatum/Morris combined to miss 8 FTs. What the fuck is that.
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– After sleeping on it, I don’t have a huge problem with the final play. We don’t like it because of the result, but the look wasn’t all that bad. Personally, I would have ran something that got Kyrie the ball that didn’t rely on so many other guys to touch it, but I’m just a blogger. What you don’t love is right after we had a timeout fight we had Kyrie yelling at Brad and then yelling at Hayward. Clear case of his frustrations boiling over as they should. He did everything he could to bring this team back, why not have a play where someone sets a screen for him after he gets a running head start so you can live and die with the result. Not even getting a touch is tough.
– The Celtics are now 10-12 on the road, which ties PHI for the most road losses among the top 5 seeds and that is so goddamn annoying.
They now have to travel to face a feisty BKN team tomorrow night to somewhat end this roadtrip on a positive note before the big time showdown with TOR. I think we’ll all feel much better if they play well and win on Wednesday against the best team in the conference, but if you think that’s going to happen playing this style of basketball you’re crazy. They pull this shit against TOR they are going to lose by 100. Stop dicking around and figure this out because you’re running out of time.
