The Celtics Once Again Blew Another Opportunity In Embarrassing Fashion And Are Now Destined For The Play In Tournament

Brian Babineau. Getty Images.

Well, that pretty much settles it. Barring something outrageous like the Knicks losing their last 3 and the Celtics winning their last 3, the Celts have played their way into the play in tournament. It's their own doing really. They had every opportunity in the world to avoid this fate and actually make the 4/5 slot just under a month ago. You may remember they won that awesome showdown with Steph Curry. Since that moment? 

4-8. Two separate stretches of 1-4 basketball. In fact, on the season the Celtics have had 5 total stretches of 1-4 play. That is what I would call, not good. One of those wins was a 32 point comeback which I think we can all agree was certainly a prayer. This end of the season had it all, losses to bad teams, losses at home in what were the two biggest games of the year, no defense, I mean look at those scores. You're not going to beat anyone I don't care who they are if you're giving up that many points. At a time when we needed to see this team strap in and actually step up defensively, they've folded like a house of cards. Yes I know who was out and obviously that is a contributing factor, but this is still inexcusable. 

So coming off the embarrassment that was the first meeting with the Heat, you would think the Celts would do all they could to step up last night right? Nope. Same shit. This time being even more embarrassing because Jimmy Butler only played one half of basketball. Still got waxed. Let's just tell it like it is. The Heat have this Celtics team figured out. I'm not sure how many times we have to see it before we just call it like it is. With their cutting, off ball movement, passing, and shooting, they know what they have to do in order to beat this team and they execute it to perfection. Doesn't hurt that they are doing it against zero resistence defensively, but between what we saw last year and then this year I don't know how anyone could argue anything different. It's not a fluke or an accident that games like this seem to always happen when these two teams play. 

I suppose it's understandable on some level to say OK, if you take two starters like Jaylen/Rob out of the mix against a full strength Heat team that they should look better. That can be true, but it can also be true that a lot of the issues we saw over this two game stretch still existed even with those guys active. 

So, the play in tournament it is. That sure is embarrassing and frustrating, but they did this to themselves. Games like last night are a big reason why.

The Good

- If there's one sliver of light in the middle of all this shit, it's how Kemba Walker looks. The word you're looking for is fantastic. That's partly what makes this so frustrating. We went through all that bullshit with his load management plan in hopes that when we got to this part of the season that he would be fresh and the best version of himself. I think we can all agree that's exactly what has happened

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So it sucks that they are wasting these performances. He looks as good as he ever has which tells you that their plan worked. The problem is none of it really matters if the team as a whole is going to continue to lose. That's the annoying part about the Jaylen/Rob injuries. We waited all year to see this group healthy with a 100% Kemba, and now we get the 100% Kemba but everyone else is hurt. That's just some shit luck. Sort of like how last year we waited all year for a healthy Hayward and then they entered the playoffs and he got hurt in Game 1. Just sucks that we're never going to see the group the team intended for. 

But as you can see, maybe all that talk about Kemba being washed because of a tough first 10 games back this season was a little premature. It's awesome to see his quickness and ability to change speeds again and you can tell his legs are feeling good because his jumper is pure. It was also nice to see Kemba keep his TOs under control (1) after really struggling with that in the first meeting. 

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- On Sunday, it felt like Tatum had a very quiet 29 points. You didn't get the sense that he was really making an impact despite looking at the box score and seeing a pretty good night. I thought yesterday he was better

33/8/6 on 12-21 (5-8) and the only Celtics starter with a positive +/-. Defensively he was much better, no Heat player had more than 3 points while being guarded by Tatum, and his two most frequent matchups in Ariza (12 possessions) and Butler (10 possessions) finished with a combined 3 points. Now he wasn't perfect, but I thought Tatum gave this team enough to win. He was much more impactful on both ends last night than we saw on Sunday, sadly it just wasn't enough. 

It's no surprise that he was able to be this efficient because he made more of a conscious effort to attack the paint. Of his 12 FGM, half of those came at the rim. That's the type of aggression this team is going to need now with Jaylen out. You can't settle.

- It's been really great to see Evan Fournier find his shooting rhythm. He looks like a completely different player confidence wise. We're seeing him actually be aggressive and attack when he catches the ball now rather than playing passive. I get why he did it, but Fournier has been legitimately good for a while now

We're seeing why it's so important that they find a way to re-sign him this offseason. He has the skillset to be that perfect fourth option. You can play through him in lineups with the second unit. He competes. The man is doing his part, putting up 21.2/4.6/5.2 on 62/61% with 4.2 3PM over his last 5 games. Sadly, the Celts have lost 4 of them. Much like Kemba, it's so infuriating to be wasting these performances. 

- You would think that a night where the Celts had 31 assists on 46 FGM, shot 52/48% with 18 3PM and scored over 120 points would be a game they win. But because this is the season from hell, of course they didn't. Offensively, there was a lot to like about what we saw in these two games. Unfortunately, defense matters.

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A lot.

The Bad

- When the Celtics brought in Tristan Thompson, my guess is they did it with the idea that in games against teams like MIA that he would offer some sort of resistance against Bam Adebayo. We all saw how Theis struggled with that matchup in the ECF. Well, that most certainly did NOT happen in these two games. 

Game 1: 20 points on 5-5 shooting (10-11 FT)

Game 2: 22 points on 10-15 shooting

There was absolutely nothing Tristan Thompson could do in that matchup. Last night Bam ate him alive for 11 points on 5-8 shooting. All this "strength" that Tristan was supposed to bring in terms on interior defense was nowhere to be found. Bam got whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. I'm ready to call that a swing and a miss by Danny if this specific matchup was one they were trying to prepare for. We already knew Thompson couldn't handle Embiid. No human can. But now even with this type of big, a smaller and more althetic version, Thompson still struggled. If he's going to do the same shit Theis did defensively, wouldn't we all rather have Theis for everything else he brings offensively? I mean with no Rob to act as a lob threat/dunker, they are getting absolutely zero production on both ends from their starting center. Already down Jaylen, that is a massive issue.

- Like it almost always does, this game started to turn in the third quarter. You start things off with 3 straight turnovers, then you start to press and shoot just 39/33% from the floor, all while playing zero defense. The Heat shot 61/50% in that third quarter, quickly turned a 3 point lead to 16 in a blink of an eye, and that was that. Once again we saw the Celts unable to defend without fouling, they got in the bonus with about 7 mintues left and gifted the Heat 6 points fromt he line. 

- At this point all you can really do is laugh

I mean if this doesn't give you a pretty good idea of how this season has gone, I don't know what does. The Celts were basically undefeated during the entire Brad tenure while shooting 53% or better, so naturally in their two biggest games of the season not only do they lose both, but then on the other end we see a team do something that hasn't been done in over a year. That's fun.

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- Just like in the ECF, we saw how far apart these two second units are. This game was pretty much decided by the play of each team's bench. On the Celtics side, they finished with no player scoring more than 7 points and had a total of 20 points come from their second unit.

The Heat? They had 50 points from the bench. Tyler Herro outscored Boston by himself. A total of 9 of their 16 3PM came from their second unit. For whatever reason, Tyler Herro stinks against every other team in the league and then becomes All NBA when playing the Celtics. Clearly they have no figured out how to defend him, and that's a problem.

Now some of it you just have to tip your cap. Like when Dragic went on this run

Those are contested threes from 30+ feet. But guess what? When you allow players to feel comfortable because you don't play defense, shit like this happens. 

The Ugly

- So let's talk about the defense. It's the #1 issue the team has and it's the primary reason they've had a dogshit season and are in the play in tournament. We've been talking about this team's defensive issues literally the entire year, so it's not like this is surprising but boy is it annoying. 

During this 4-8 stretch, the Celts have the 24th best defensive rating at 114.7. They are 22nd in opponent FG% at 47.7%, 22nd in opponent 3PM at 13.4, and 29th in opponent 3P% at 40.4%. They are giving up 116 points a game during this stretch, 116! To put this in perspective, that's worse than the Timberwolves. Look at that graphic at the top of this blog, they cannot stop anyone. How do you expect to win if you can't get stops?

A lot of it has to do with lack of communication and effort. Not fighting over screens or switching correctly. Allowing Tyler Herro to step into a wide open transition three. It's all very uncharacteristic of every Brad Stevens team we've ever seen. They've never been this poor defensively at any point in his tenure. Even with guys out of the lineup. Game after game after game we're seeing tweets like this

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It's infuriating. So while some are prayers like that Dragic run, the problems run deeper than that. Their perimeter defense has been mostly trash all year which is the foundation of their inconsistency. It's hard to turn things around when you literally can't stop the opponent from scoring. It's no surprise that when we did see this team go on a run a month ago and beat good teams doing it, they had a top 5 defensive rating. Is it shocking that while we see them crater that their defense is among the worst in the league? Seems like the two might be related.

So here they sit. As down as they've ever been all year, with the uncertainty of the play in tournament now in their future. They had all the opportunity in the world to avoid it, and they blew it in embarrassing fashion like only the 2020-21 Celtics can. It's actually impressive really, but not in a good way.