After Another Bad Loss And A Brutal Road Trip, It Would Be Nice If The Celtics Got Their Shit Together
If we’re being completely honest, I wasn’t sure how to start this blog. This team has me so shook I literally sat here for like 15 minutes just staring at my screen. I just don’t know how you can be a fan of this team and wake up this morning with your blood not boiling. Listen frustrating losses are nothing new to this team or this fanbase. As I’ve said before the #1 rule when it comes to understanding this team is accepting the fact that they never make things easy on themselves. That’s been the case for years dating all the way back to the Isaiah years of this rebuild. But even knowing that, I can’t help but be disgusted by what we just witnessed over this 3 game road trip. The Celtics have had a lot of ups and downs this year, from losing 4 out of 5 early in the year on a West Coast trip, to winning 8 in a row followed by another 3 game slide, to then winning 4 in a row prior to this current 3 game dip. Here’s the worst part about each of those little mini losing streaks. They all include losses to teams the Celtics have no business losing to. Take this trip for example. Not one team they lost two was over .500 when the game happened. How do you win 4 games in a row, have a stretch in your schedule where you’re playing 3 teams under .500, and you lose all three? This isn’t early in the year, we’re at the midway point and STILL we’re dealing with this bullshit. Yeah I know Kyrie and Smart were out, but what happened to this team’s depth? What happened to them showing any sort of life whatsoever on the road? This team has already matched its road loss number (13) that they had all of last year!
The reality of the situation is the Celtics now find themselves closer to the 8 seed than they are to the 1. It’s one thing to panic and freak out when the season was still young, but we are no longer at that point. This team deserves every hot take and every bit of criticism that’s out there because they should be ashamed of themselves. It’s literally not hard for any other team in the league to beat these bad teams, and yet the Celtics consistently prove they can’t do it. It’s honestly one of the most confusing things I’ve ever seen. How can a team whose advanced stats say one thing, end up being 19-8 against teams under .500 and 10-13 on the road? That’s shit the Sixers do (10-12 on road 21-8 vs teams under .500) and that may be the meanest thing you could say about this Celtics team.
Alright look, you know we don’t run when things are brutal. We blog through it, take our lumps and move on. This shit wasn’t pretty, but we have to talk about it. Let’s begin.
The Good
– You know I gave serious thought to skipping this section entirely. Nothing I’ve seen from this team over these last 3 games made me feel like they deserved any praise. But, then I realized that some of you, like myself, may need to see even the smallest amount of positivity during a dark time like this. That it is my job to always find even a sliver of light while for the most part this team makes us all want to claw our eyes out. So we’re going to keep this quick, because really there are only two positives from last night.
The kids showed up
A lot of fingers have been pointed at the young guys recently, but we can say without a doubt Jaylen and Jayson were the only Celtics to show up last night in BKN. They combined for 56 of the 102 on a combined 21-37 shooting, Jaylen was a team best +14 in his minutes and had the exact approach we need to see from him, and defensively both guys held up their end. We saw real signs with Tatum in terms of his play in the P&R, his improved footwork coming off the ball and attacking the rim, and finally he broke the 30 point mark for the first time in his career.
Opponents shot a combined 3-10 against Jayson Tatum, he did a good job on Kurucs who he guarded most with 24 possessions giving up just 6 points, and his other matchup in DeMarre Carroll went 0-3 on his 20 possessions. With Jaylen opponents shot just 3-9 and his most frequent matchup of Joe Harris who he guarded on 25 possessions finished with just 4 points on 1-4 shooting. Defense has at times been a big issue for both, but there are few complaints from me in this one.
– That’s it. That’s all the sugarcoating this team gets. Now we move to the real part of this blog.
The Bad
– Let’s start with the offense. I think it’s pretty clear the Celtics have shown a roadmap as to how to be successful on the offensive end. Move the ball, cut without the ball, do not settle for low percentage looks. Hell we just saw it during their 4 game winning streak where they averaged like 32 assists a night. It gave us the sense that they figured out their early offensive struggles and things looked great. They then go on the road and boom, the ball stops moving. As a result the Celtics stop scoring and their percentages tank. Last night it was 40/30% with just 21 assists. Third straight game with 21 or fewer assists, third straight loss. Coincidence? Of course not.
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If you want to blame this on not having Kyrie/Smart, two of this teams better passers I’ll listen, but the fact of the matter is this shit was still going on in the games they did play on this trip, so I can’t allow that excuse. Earlier in the year the Celtics shooting troubles were more they weren’t hitting outside shots. What we’ve seen recently is they are simply not running an offense. Their whole system revolves around moving the ball, cutting, and getting quality looks. This team creates more open shots than like 90% of the league, but yet when they struggle it’s as if they’ve never played basketball before. The ball is sticking, players are missing guys in P&R or in transition, guys are playing selfish. The frustrating part is they’ve seen what happens when they play like this and yet they keep on doing it even after it proves to be ineffective. Part of that is on the players, and part of that is on Brad. He can’t force players to make the right play but he sure as shit can control their minutes when he sees them not playing the right way.
– I think there’s something to be said in regards to this stat
We were led to believe that once Terry was inserted into the starting lineup that things change. Well, his start was pretty much an omen of what was to come
3-12, 1-6 from three, 5 assists to 3 TOs and just 7 points. He was a -11 in his 25 minutes and eventually was benched for Brad Wanamaker. To make matters worse, he was the biggest issue in defending D’Angelo Russell who essentially won this game for BKN in that third quarter. He had the second worst net rating of -20 among the starters and given who was out this team simply could not afford to have one of the worst Rozier performances of the season. It’s no secret that when he plays well this team usually wins. but nothing we saw last night told us that Terry deserves more minutes right now. He can be frustrated all he wants but guess what, so am I watching him play like this. The problem is, the Celts made their decision to hold onto him as Kyrie insurance, and now it seems like their hands are tied. I know everyone wants him traded, but I really feel as though Ainge is just going to take his lumps and play through it whether that’s the right choice or not.
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– If previous losses were on the young guys, tonight the blame is primarily with the vets. We’ll start with Mook. I’m willing to give him a pass for his dud because he’s been so incredible this season, but last night was a disaster for him. He had 8 points in the first quarter and then did not score the rest of the night. He finished just 3-11 and a starter worst -15, had a -27 net rating and that simply cannot happen. If his offense isn’t rolling he needs to be that lockdown defender and we didn’t get that last night. He took just 2 FGA in the entire second half on a night where they desperately needed his scoring, so that wasn’t great.
Then we have Al Horford. The man is supposed to be the defensive anchor of this team as well as one of their primary facilitators. Well, in reality last night he was pretty much BBQ chicken. Opponents shot a combined 7-8 against him, Jarrett Allen owned that matchup and then going against smaller wing players his speed just wasn’t there. He played under 19 minutes and I don’t know if this was because his knee was acting up or what, but I’m leaning towards it was more due to the fact that he couldn’t stop a nosebleed. I don’t really care about his salary, people need to stop focusing on that because it hasn’t prevented them from doing anything. This performance would not be acceptable even if Horford only made 2M a year and as a leader of this team and their best defender, this shit was inexcusable.
Finally, there’s Hayward. It’s no surprise that during this three game losing streak we’ve seen him hit a valley. Just 17 combined points through three games on a combined 7-22 shooting (1-9 from deep). I can’t keep saying this enough, it’s OK to understand you have to be patient when it comes to Hayward while still expecting his impact to be better than what we’re seeing. His second game with 0 FTA, he looks timid, he’s missing bunnies, just 4 assists over the last 2 games tells me they aren’t using him right and giving him the ball. There is no reason that on a team where guys were out that Gordon Hayward had a 10% usage rate.
YOU HAVE HIM FOR A REASON, GIVE HIM THE BALL.
– Just a cool 55-41 rebounding difference. Almost like defense and rebounding are the keys to this team winning or something. The lack of rebounding, especially on the defensive end (BKN 13 OREB), led to a ridiculous 28 second chance points for the Nets. How on earth is that even possible?
– What the hell is this. Tell me this doesn’t sum up their season
The Ugly
– Brad, are you paying attention? How is it that he can call a timeout 30 seconds into this game when Terry gives up a bad three, but at the most crucial part of the game, as we are all witnessing this game getting out of hand in that third quarter that he just sits there and does nothing? Over the course of the Nets run in the third quarter for the last 7 minutes of that frame, he did not call one timeout. Not one. Nothing to stop the momentum, nothing after any of Russell’s bombs, and the worst part is this shit KEEPS HAPPENING. I think we’ve seen enough examples of this team not being able to play through slides like this. Why won’t he stop the bleeding and regroup? Take out guys that are proving to do more harm than good before it’s a fucking 27 point deficit?
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The problem is pretty clear. The Celts start to see these runs and immediately go into a “oh no not again” mindset. As a result they try and get it all back with one shot instead of playing the right way. Just look at how they played during the bulk of this run
From 7 minutes on, this is what the two teams looked like
No defense, poor shot selection, turnovers, the works. Would things have been prevented had Brad taken a timeout to stop the bleeding? Maybe, maybe not, but the fact that he just let this happen cannot be overlooked. We want to talk about how bad the players have been, well for the first time in his tenure it sure feels like Brad is losing this team games or at least has a major role in it. This was a huge test for him given this team has real talent now, and he has sorta been a disaster thus far. That may be the biggest surprise of this entire season.
– So let’s talk more about that third quarter. Just a cool 44 points for the Nets, that’s awesome. I’d say that’s an anomaly only we’ve seen them do this exact same thing earlier in the year against SA. Why is it not possible to just have a normal bad quarter and give up like 35? This was a 2 point game midway through the quarter and suddenly you’re giving up 44 points? The Nets had like 46 at halftime! Have some fucking pride would you? You’re embarrassing yourself and everyone that watches you when you pull this shit.
– Gross
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– To make matters worse, now we have the internet freaking out about what Jaylen said postgame
All he was saying was that they need to stay together and not point fingers. It’s not the young guys it’s not the old guys it’s everyone. Seemed pretty innocent to me but I’ve seen it being spun as a dig right back at Kyrie for what he said the other day. Look we have enough bullshit to deal with can we not with this? If anything, Mook’s comments were much more concerning
I’ll tell you what your identity is. You’re an inconsistent group that can’t beat bad teams and too often tries to climb out of quicksand because you take possessions off. Like it or not, that is your identity right now.
The good news is, they only have one of the best teams in the NBA and hottest teams in the East coming up on Wednesday. Knowing this group, they probably beat the Raptors only because nothing about this season makes sense. Would that make you feel better as a Celtics fan? Maybe, but at the same time I don’t think this team is catching TOR anyways so it’s not like the H2H will matter. All I know is the Celtics had a great opportunity to make up ground in the East heading into this road trip and they failed miserably. They reverted back to back habits and have no one to blame but themselves. Their inconsistency has plagued them all year and is showing no signs of being corrected, which is obviously an issue. Long way to go, but if they play like this on Wednesday they are going to lose by 100.
So please, get your shit together because you are taking years off my life. Thank you.
