It Has Become Very Frustrating How The Celtics Refuse To Stop Playing Braindead Basketball On Their Own Floor

Brian Babineau. Getty Images.

Please do not be fooled by that score. A mostly fugazi comeback by the deep bench once the Celts fell down by 27 early in the 4th quarter helps make that score look more respectable, but make no mistake the Celts were completely outplayed from the opening tip. After taking a 4-3 lead in the first 50 seconds of the game, the Celts never even tied the game again for the remaining 47:10 of gameplay. 

It was as clear a case of a wire to wire ass kicking as we've ever seen. In fact, we just saw it the other day against CLE. Celts took a 7-6 lead early in the first quarter and never trailed again. This time, they were on the other side of one of those ass whoopings.

For those who have been watching this season, it's hard to say we didn't all see this coming the second AD was ruled out and the line moved to -11.5. Everyone knows that you pair a shorthanded team with a double digit spread and this team is playing their first game at home after a road trip, this result is pretty much what always happens.

In early November, the Celts beat the Hawks to finish a 4 game road trip (3-1). Their first game back? The first meeting with GS and Steph Curry. The result?

The first home loss of the season where it was more of the same. No defense as the Celts gave up 3 straight 31+ point quarters, the bench was severely outplayed, you know how this goes.

Right before Christmas, the Celts had a little 2 game mini road trip before returning home against Christmas. How did that go in that return game? Ah yes

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Another game allowed 118 points. Another game of the bench being severely outplayed combined with turnovers and another 4th quarter of gross execution defensively (36 points allowed).

A few weeks later, the Celts went out West and had a great trip. What did we see in their first return game back at the Garden? You're probably starting to notice a trend by now

Oh don't worry, we aren't done. About two weeks later the Celts once again went out West and had a great trip. How did things go when they returned against HOU for the first game back home?

Which brings us to where we are currently. The Celts once again had a great road trip (3-0) and were coming off a huge win against the Cavs. How did things look against a shorthanded team as a double digit favorite on their own floor?

Don't ask me to explain this trend, it makes no sense. All I can say is the Celts have literally been doing this all season long, as you can see above. So while a game like last night is very fucking annoying, it's also not at all surprising. Every season has its own set of quirks and this just so happens to be one that exists for the 2024-25 Celtics. They simply cannot win when they first get back from a road trip, no matter who they play or what the context around that team may be. Fired coach? No matter. Injured roster? Your chances go up. Bad team? Makes no difference.

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The result is a 16-10 home record, which no matter how you want to slice it is very bad. There is no spinzone to try and make it seem like that's not embarrassing, it's tied for the most home losses of any top 6 seed in the East. For whatever reason, this team is still obsessed with making their life harder on themselves for no reason. Think about what we're asking here. All we as fans are asking for is to take care of games on your OWN floor against teams that are depleted. I don't need a 30 point blowout, but I need a win in that situation. Yet all year long whenever the Celts have found themselves in this spot, they somehow morph into a team that looks to be allergic to playing good basketball.

It makes no sense, but let's try and figure it the hell out together.

The Good

- Frankly, I'm not sure anything even really belongs in this section given how poor of a performance this was from pretty much everyone involved, but after the game I found myself to be the least frustrated with Derrick White. I'm not sure if this is just copium and he wasn't actually that "good" as opposed to him just being the "least shitty", but I had to put something here so just watch his highlights and we can move on to why we're really all here

- Everyone good? OK, let's move on.

The Bad

- In games like this, there's really only one place to start, and that's with the two best players. They set the standard. When you're in a situation where you're at home, riding a 4 game winning streak and playing a shorthanded team, I always consider those games the time when the two best players need to make it their responsibility to play with energy and effort, play smart, and set the standard for the rest of the roster. 

What we got from both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in this game was nowhere CLOSE to being good enough or anywhere CLOSE to the standard in which they need to be playing.

With Tatum, it was another game where right from the jump you could tell he was sleepwalking/mailing it in. It's so obvious when he's playing like this and I have no idea why. If he's tired, sit him. Give him a rest day for the first time since 12/23, because efforts like this help no one. When the very first possession results in a lazy turnover trying to post up Kyrie Irving, you could sort of tell where we were headed

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Almost always in these Tatum coma games you see a few common issues. First, is the turnovers. He becomes insanely lazy with the basketball. I mean, what even is shit like this?

Tatum is the best player, it's imperative that he has the ball the most (which he does) and that we can rely on him having the ball and not being so careless and lazy with it. Live ball turnovers are death, and it killed the Celts in this game. A total of 5 FGM and 4 TOs from your best player in his own building is never acceptable. Period.

When these stinkers happen, in addition to the TOs we usually get Tatum missing EVERYTHING at the rim. What happened in this loss? 

To help illustrate how bad it was, we got a whole lot of this type of shit early from Tatum in that first quarter

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Turnovers, poor 2pt execution, and the most obvious sign that Tatum is coasting, a lack of rebounding. Tatum finished this game with just 4 rebounds, and while going double bigs may have played a small factor in that, it's hard to ignore the recent rebounding slide that we've seen from Tatum pretty much since mid January

To me, his legs have to be gassed. Missing wide open layups on the front rim? Essentially nothing on the glass? High turnovers? All clear signs that a guy is running on fumes, and when that's your best player who sets the standard, that's not great. 

Now you may see Jaylen Brown's scoring line (25 points on 9-16, 3-4) and be curious why I'm grouping him in with this, and that's because those numbers are deceiving. Yes, the scoring was important, but again, the best players set the standard. How would we describe the standard of this defensive effort?

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Add in his back to back brutal TOs in the 1st quarter that helped spark the Mavs run, and while he was efficient and productive scoring the ball, all the other aspects of his night outweigh that for me. 

The Jays combined for 7 of the team's 14 TOs. Combined they had a 6:7 assist to turnover ratio, which you don't even have to be good at math to know sucks ass. Tatum was a -22 in his minutes, Brown a -15. 

These two set the standard for the entire roster, and last night the standard was dogshit.

- With no Jrue, it wasn't a surprise to see that we got more double bigs. The surprising part was how awful every double big pairing was. KP/Al got cooked. Kornet/Al or Kornet/KP got cooked. It was a game where every player on the court looked a step slow, and what remains unacceptable is the fact that if you're going to play double big then you have to rebound. The fact that the Celts lost the rebounding battle in this game, allowed 11 OREB and 13 2nd chance points, all while mostly having 2 bigs on the court is so pathetic I don't even know where to begin.

Daniel Gafford was the best big on the floor in this game, and that is something that should never happen in a game Porzingis is playing in. 

As a fan you're watching those lineups and rage internally that Joe resisted for so long to go away from it and play smaller. That's usually the logical step right? Well, what is he supposed to do when the one big lineup also sucks ass? Those groups were just as ineffective on both ends of the floor, so in a way it didn't really matter what lineup was out there. Nobody was providing any sort of defensive resistance.

This was one of those rare nights where I thought the gameplan from Joe was pretty terrible and the execution from the players was even worse. When your entire bench is essentially unplayable for 90% of the game, I'm just not sure what the solve is. Every player that touched the floor in this game put up a stinker on both ends of the floor, which is just bizarre given it was a home game.

- To me, this game was decided in 2 stretches

1. The final 4 minutes of the 1st quarter with the starters + Tatum and the bench for the first 2 minutes of the 2nd quarter (23-7 Mavs run)

2. The first 3 minutes of the 3rd quarter with the starters (14-4 Mavs run).

The issue here of course, is these rotations are all your best players. This was a 24-21 point game around around the 4 minute mark of the 1st quarter when it was Pritchard and the starters to close it out. They scored 2 more points.

Then, it was Tatum and the bench to open the 2nd, a group that normally thrives together, and they opened that frame with a 10-2 hole. The third quarter with the starters same thing, 10-2 hole right out of the half. 

So while some may have been begging for energy bench guys to play, my response to that would be when? During these runs, it's early enough in the game to where this is when your rotation players play. This is when your best players are getting their first shifts, and they completely shit the bed. Drew Peterson or Jordan Walsh isn't the answer in those spots. The answer is your best players not being complete ass and playing losing basketball.

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- As we so often say, if you don't defend, you die. The Celtics lost a game in which they scored 120 points, shot 51/43/80% and made 16 3PM. That is something that should NEVER result in a loss. 

But it did. Why?

Turnovers, zero defense, and poor execution at the rim.

When you're so careless with the ball that you are giving up a ton of live ball turnovers and points in transition, that's how you fall behind the shot margin. When you're also not getting stops, that issue becomes even greater. 

Mavs shot 55/45% and only turned it over 8 times. They got whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, and there was not a single Celtic interested in making things tough for them. You do that. no wonder you get blown out.

The Ugly

- I know the deep bench went crazy in the 4th, but that's not really the story of the bench. It was awful. Completely outplayed for 3.5 quarters. When things mattered, the Mavs bench was winning the scoring battle 44-10. Pritchard was 2-6 (1-5) through 3 quarters, Sam Hauser was a complete not factor offensively while being repeatedly targeted defensively (Mavs shot 8-11 vs him) while also making braindead mistakes like this

the way the bench was outplayed in this game was ultimately a gigantic factor in the result. You simply can't be a negative in every aspect of a game. If you're not making your shots, you have to be able to guard your yard and force misses. If you aren't going to defend, then you can't be a zero offensively. Ideally, you play defense AND execute offensively, but at the very worst that unit needs to do one of those two things, and last night they couldn't do either.

- Given he clearly emptied the tank against the Cavs, it was probably expected that Al was going to need a few days to recharge, but he looked tough in space in this matchup. It feels a little mean considering he's old as hell and we shouldn't be needing Al to be their savior every game, but him not really being playable was tough. It forced more KP/Kornet minutes which were a struggle, and with Hauser also struggling it's not as if they could rely on Al being the only big in lineups. The hope is that he's charged up for the Knicks game considering he only played 21 minutes, because to win that game they need Good Al Horford to show up.

Big picture, really this is just another annoying loss. That's pretty much it. After winning 4 in a row, the Celts dropped the 5th game. That's pretty much how they've been playing for the last 2+ years. It's annoying because 40/20 is getting tight and it's a game they had no business losing, but I do think a nice response win against the Knicks will calm most people down. What I do know is if they go into MSG with the type of effort we saw last night, the game will be over by halftime. If they play to their standard and not like a bunch of braindead idiots things should be just fine.