The Celtics find themselves at a bit of a crossroads at the moment.
When they lost 5 of 6 in mid December, they responded by winning 4 in a row.
After back to back losses a few weeks later, they ripped off 9 in a row.
Which brings us to today.
The Celts have been nowhere near good enough.
Last time I checked, Tatum, Brown, Smart, Derrick, Al etc are all playing right?
The issue here is we know what this team looks like when they are playing to their potential.
When they are locked in defensively.
Of course, there is plenty of time to right the ship, there are 17 games left.
So let’s see what this team is made of.
Now they have to do it during one of the more important stretches of the season.
But as always, before we move on, we first must talk about last night.
For my money, Jaylen was the best Celtic on the floor last night.
That feels a little backwards to me.
Over this span, he’s shooting 58/40% in 4th quarters.
- The same is true with Jayson Tatum.
Those were killer and that is why I called his game last night weird.
- Few things in life bother me more than wasting good Al Horford games.
Not only that, but he hit the big corner three that should have won this team the game.
By that point, Al had played 45 minutes so it’s whatever.
To be wasting these types of Al performances is just very frustrating.
He showed up ready to go and letting Al down is about as disheartening as it gets.
- That’s pretty much it, let’s move on.
The Bad
- One thing is abundantly clear when it comes to playing the Knicks.
They are not afraid of you.
I just look at it like this.
If the Celts had this key in of success over any other team, what would we say?
We would say they mentally “own” that team right?
In their first meeting, the Celts made 27 3PM, their best shooting night of the year.
In the second game, Jaylen bricked those 2 FTs right at the end of the game.
In the 3rd meeting, the Celts had their worst shooting game of the entire season.
They were 12-0 prior to last night.
That sure is fun!
That starts with Marcus Smart.
You remember that brutal AST% number from the top of the blog right?
Meanwhile, he’s also turning the ball over 2.8 times a night.
Considering most of them are live ball turnovers, that’s an issue.
- The issue last night was Derrick also wasn’t that much better either.
Over this stretch, he’s just 1-15 from behind the arc (1-8 last 2 games).
This sort of reminds me of what we saw in the Finals.
When Smart/White aren’t making shots and aren’t creating for others, the offense struggles.
Guard play might be the most important aspect of the Celtics offense.
When they get good or elite guard play, everything changes.
When they are getting more negative than good from their guards, nothing else really matters.
It makes no goddamn sense.
Last night, Joe went “big” with the Al/Grant frontcourt instead of staying small.
The Knicks had 3 OREB in the biggest moments of the 2OT.
Extra possessions led to extra points.
This has been an issue all year, especially in these close games.
I think we’re up to like 37 of these things on the year?
It’s truly remarkable how bad this team is at defending last second shots.
This wasn’t even bad defense, but it doesn’t matter.
The Celts love giving up buzzer beaters.
The Celtics defense is currently a joke.
It starts with each individual guy not being able to guard their own man.
Just look at all these losses since we got back.
What is a common theme?
The Celts are getting absolutely abused by dribble penetration.
If you might’t stop things at the point of attack, your defense is cooked.
That’s a problem.
In this game, the formula was simple.
The whole point of Grant is he’s supposed to provide that defensive versatility to stay with quicker players.
Well, in this game, IQ had 13 points on 10 possessions vs Grant.
When the Knicks needed a big bucket late, they targeted that matchup.
So just add it up.
The perimeter guys like Smart/Jaylen/Brogdon/Tatum etc aren’t really stopping anyone.
In switches, the Celts bigs have been way too slow.
These soft switches aren’t exactly working, so that needs to be figured out.
This was more of a pick your poison key in situation.
With White on the floor, the Knicks were playing through Randle on that switch, and White struggled.
The downside was Grant was far too slow to stay with IQ, who the Knicks played through instead.
The Celts have a closing problem at the moment.
I think that’s fair to say.
When this team isn’t getting efficient looks late, the offense stalls.
Instead, guys like Tatum/Brown went for the homerun 3PA.
- Nothing like going 19-34 at the rim and 2-13 from the paint.
So we now turn our page to tonight.
At this point, the Celts just need to stop the bleeding and get their confidence back.
Stop worrying about what happened the game before, that shit is over and done with.
Figure out a way to dig in defensively and the rest will take care of itself.
If you don’t, well then things can spiral rather quickly.
