That about sums it up I’d say.
Two guys that I have zero issues with the morning after another inexcusable loss.
Luke Kornet and Payton Pritchard, you did your job.
He did his part.
With Pritchard, you’re looking at the entire bench scoring production.
Pritchard had this exact same performance in the Raptors loss too.
That was a game he finished with 20/2/4 on 7-11 (4-8) shooting.
Talk about being annoying as fuck.
Down KP, that meant someone was going to have to ensure to pick up the offensive slack.
In these shorthanded games, the bench scoring and bench shooting is even more important.
It has to be efficient and it has to be productive.
Payton Pritchard did his job.
Shame it was all in a loss.
Just play to your standard, it cannot be this hard.
But when you watch these games, it’s so clear that’s really all this is.
Just compare it to the ORL blowout the night before.
Nothing about the scheme or the process changed.
They generated open looks the same way and had a similar shot profile, even without KP.
The difference, was last night was back to the world where nothing goes in.
Open looks, wide open looks, wide open fastbreak dunks, nothing is going in.
They were competitive on the glass (55-53).
They were 20-23 from the FT line.
The energy wasn’t awful or anything, guys were all just complete bricks.
Think of when this stretch of inconsistent dogshit first started.
Right around early December.
Well, what has started happening since around that mark?
Then December hit and in the 23 games since, they’ve now had 7 (1-6).
The fact that this is an entire roster issue is why it feels so bizarre.
Collectively, nobody can shoot, and it’s now becoming the norm to finish under 30%.
Do you know how impossible that is?
Especially for a team of this talent level?
When it was all said and done, the Celts finished with 38/28% splits.
This coming after they shot 39/34% against the Raptors in that loss.
Jaylen 9-27 which is gross.
Tatum 7-21 which is gross.
Derrick 7-20 which is gross.
I mean what the fuck?
Stop missing every shot you take, and the Celts look drastically different.
We’re now about 1.5 months into this collective shooting rut, which doesn’t seem possible.
This isn’t even opposing defenses either.
This is guys being unable to make wide open looks
So annoying.
- When you play the Hawks, by now the Celtics should know two things.
You have to take care of the basketball
2.
If you do the opposite of those two things, you are going to lose.
Which option do we think the Celtics chose?
Allow me to tell you a quick story.
To open this game, the Celts got off to a great start.
By the end of the first 12 minutes, they held a 12 point lead.
In the 2nd quarter, guess what happened?
Their shooting went cold.
To the tune of 23/0%!
They scored just 15 points in the quarter!
What else started to happen do you think?
That’s right, they started to turning the ball over.
A total of 6 TOs in the quarter, the game completely flipped.
In the second half, it was the same thing.
Brutal turnovers and brutal opponent OREBs.
Let me ask you, would you say those impacted the result?
They’ve literally lost games to this exact team doing this exact thing a handful of times already.
Every ATL loss is the same.
Poor shooting, inexplicable TOs and giving up back breaking crucial late game OREBs.
It’s exactly how they lost the November meeting, which is what makes it all so frustrating.
- As good as the Jays were against the Magic, they were equally as poor against the Hawks.
But overall, his performance was not good enough.
Finishing 9-27 (2-9) with poor defense is not good enough.
The execution on the final possession of OT was not good enough.
For long stretches, it felt like Tatum was only out there looking to do cardio.
Nowhere near as aggressive as we saw against ORL.
To his credit, Tatum carried the 3rd quarter.
Sorry, as the best player that simply cannot happen.
This coming off him missing both against NO late, what the hell is going on?
This isn’t Jaylen and his shaky FTs late, this is Tatum.
He’s the guy you want at the line in that moment, and he bricked it.
Further proof of the rut.
In OT, Tatum finished just 1-4 (0-3).
- If we’ve said it once we’ve said it a thousand times.
All of these losses are the same.
Awful shooting, awful ball security, and disaster 4th quarters.
We can’t even trust games in which the Celtics have leads heading into the 4th quarter!
Not even the worst teams in the NBA are this bad in the 4th quarter.
Think about that for a second.
Mostly because the majority of the Hawks points in OT came off Queta screw ups defensively.
What could have led Joe to make this move?
I think you have to remember what we had seen up until that point.
The Hawks had been feasting on drop coverage all night.
They were great at finishing with floaters in the paint around Kornet.
Sadly, Queta did not.
Twist the knife why don’t you.
I mean come on.
The Ugly
- On one hand, you never lose faith in a lifetime 40% shooter.
There’s really no other way to say it.
When he makes 1 or under, they lose.
Hauser, while his defense and rebounding has improved, is the shooter.
That’s his role.
you could’t throw up 0-7 (0-5)s at home.
- Alright, we can finally get to the end of the game.
Frankly, it makes me nauseous to even think about.
Jaylen Brown made this shot to give the Celtics the lead with under 30 seconds.
Great ATO, great execution
All you’re thinking now is just NO THREES.
It changes the entire dynamic of the finish.
All you have to do is hold onto the ball, and you’ve effectively won the game.
Even going 1-2 from he FT line would have been good enough.
Brace yourself
This is unthinkable.
A player as smart as Jrue Holiday?
Isn’t this the exact situation he was traded for?
I still cannot believe this happened.
The game was over.
You did it, you held them off and you just…..gave it away?
There’s a lot of debate if Jrue should have just taken the layup to go up 5.
Sure, I can understand that.
That’s not a bad decision.
Killing the clock is a great idea!
The mistake is dribbling to the sideline and then passing the ball.
Just hold onto it and the Hawks will foul you.
If you get trapped and panic, just call the timeout!
you could do 2 things in that spot
1.
Take the layup
2.
Hold onto the ball
That’s it.
I don’t even love the decision even if the pass was made cleanly.
Holiday was accountable after the loss which is great, but we’re past that.
- Not to be dramatic, but 40/20 is starting to get tight.
That’s not me saying it, that’s NBA history.
It would take a statistical anomaly for this team to win the title without hitting 40/20.
So what else is there to say.
Another kick to the dick in what has been a month long stretch of being kicked in the dick.
At some point this has to end, but in the meantime it sure is annoying as hell.
