Post Game - Celtics vs. Atlanta Hawks - Monday, March 25 (L)

CHOKE.  That's what it was, we choked.  Up 30 with 4:23 left in the 2nd and we lose.  Awful.  Credit to Quinn Snyder and the Hawk for not giving up.  Shame on the Celtics for their arrogance and smugness to think they're entitled to win.  What disturbed me is how our minds unraveled.  Everybody started looking at each other like they didn't know what was going on.  It was obvious.  They had ganas, we didn't.

We showed, once again, that our guys lack maturity.  That's the bad, potentially really bad, news because the World Champion Denver Nuggets are not that (one more reason why I'd prefer OKC coming out of the West).  The good news is that we shamed ourselves on NBA TV, EVERYBODY is talking about it and now doubting them.  Hopefully a lesson was learned here.  For the most part they've been learning from losses this year, this one might be fortuitous because it's seared into their brains for the remaining 26 games (10 + fo-fo-fo-fo) to 38 games (10 + 7-7-7-7) still ahead of us.

One thing that went wrong is we stopped communicating.  They kept throwing late doubles at the ballhandlers like Tatum and Brown and making steals from their blindside and no Celtic on the floor yelled "WATCH OUT!".  "ON YOUR LEFT/RIGHT!"  Where were Al and Z during this? Why didn't the double teamer's Celtic say something about his man leaving him?

Speaking of Z, Capela completely outworked and outmuscled him.  Porzingis is tall, Porzingis is big but Porzingis isn't that strong and aggressive.  He struggles to shoot over people despite having half a dozen inches on them.  Capela with 12 rebounds, 5 offensive.  

Our defense, in general, sucked all game but especially our perimeter defense.  It's like we completely forgot everything we had been doing all season.  All season we switch on defense at the perimeter.  Last night our guys weren't switching and that was giving Hawks wide-open jumpshots or free curls to the rim which got them layups or lobs to Capela.

We shot 71% (5-7) on 3s after one, 43.5% (10-23) on 3s at the half.  Not bad, huh?  We shot 29%  for the game, 7% (1-15) in the 2nd half.  Same thing can happen when normally reliable jump shooters can't hit a bucket to save their lives.  Sam was 0-4 in the 2nd half, Z 0-3, Jaylen 0-3 and Jayson 0-3, Pritchard 0-1,  Springer 0-1.  This is the downside of being a long-range jump shooting team.  Just like with missing fritos, it's contagious.  When normally reliable frito shooters start missing everybody starts second-guessing and they start missing.  Sam's 2-10?  Sam?!  Payton's 1-4 in the 1st half from 3?  Uh-oh.  We stopped moving, we stood around and waited for the ball.  No cutting, no player movement, no ball movement.  Too much holding the ball and dribbling, dribbling, dribbling in place.


Chris Forsberg

@ChrisForsberg_
If you were hoping the Celtics had learned from the 19-dribble Tatum fadeaway in Cleveland, here’s what I believe is a 23-dribble possession for Jaylen Brown where nothing develops and he’s forced to rush up a bad shot after Atlanta pulled ahead late.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1772451271892410669

If Jaylen was expecting a double team, think about how many Celtics had to fail to move in order to make that plan fail.  If Jaylen and Jayson's defenders do a good job M2M, and the other 4 Celtics on the floor just stand there and watch, that's poor offense.  Did the Js hold the ball too much?  Yes, but nobody else did anything either to help them out.


Last year Joe got a lot of shite because he didn't call timeouts.  This year he has done much better at that and I cannot blame him for not calling them last night.  He did, they just went out and did the same thing they were doing before the timeout.  They didn't match the Hawks in energy and effort, they kept running plays for 3s instead of moving without the ball, they kept trying to iso one of the Js and either have them either take their man or draw a double (which they did, but then we didn't execute to take advantage of that).


Vit Krecji.  Who?  Exactly.  Played a grand total of 228 minutes this season before last night's 33.  Averaged 5.6ppg.  16 points last night.  Over half of his total fgas are 3s, he's their Sam Hauser, and yet we repeatedly left him alone at the arc.  Now that is Joe's, or at least the coaching staff's, fault.

The Hawks shot 11-19 from 3 in the 2nd half and ended up at 50%.


Steve Bulpett @SteveBHoop
yesterday
Celtics have allowed opponents to shoot better than 50 pct in each of the last 4 games. I don't find it to be a coincidence that Jrue Holiday didn't play in those games -- though with the defensive talent they can put on the floor even without him, it shouldn't matter this much.


Even then we were up 3 at 2 minutes left, up 2 with 1:39 left.  What happened?  Well, down by 1 with 15 seconds left Capela gets an offensive rebound and kicks it out for a Murray 3 and that was the game.  With virtually no real front court they still got 15 offensive rebounds, and that's just plain outworking us.  There is no excuse for getting outworked, available talent or no available talent, as the Atlanta Hawks proved last night.

We now have two days, with no travel, to lick our self-inflicted wounds and obsess over payback.


Bob


.

You could just see we got bored when we were up 30. CJ could have called time earlier during Atlanta's third quarter run, but he wanted them to play through it. It was almost like we wanted to make this game interesting.

The 8 second violation on Tatum was embarrassing. If he ever has to play the point again he won't make that mistake again. The big play was Tatum's turnover up 2 that led to the go ahead 3. Let's face it, we lost focus and hopefully we will learn a lesson you can do that against an NBA team. Certainly not having White or Holiday was a factor, but no excuse. You have to play every possession the right way, and we didn't do that.

The game is meaningless in the standings, but maybe it can be used as motivation to play 48 minutes. I bet these next two days of practice are going to be interesting.

There goes the guy with the 10 day contract lightening us up repeatedly.

You know, some times a little defense will go a long way especially when you go 11-38 from deep (28.3%)

Energy is a strange phenomena.  

By the way the Celtics have a record of 3-3 .500 without D White.  But his absence should not have made a difference in this game.

There is nothing much that can be made of this loss.  We saw 2 games in play.  We won the first one and lost the second one.  The second one actually counted.

The Celtics went into this game after being declared the winner of the EC regular season.  A solid right cross to chin may get their attention.  Bruno the Brute really is not the second coming of Moses Malone.  However none of our 3 centers are physical enough at the rim.  No Tillman last night.  JT had a very solid game but he is not a pace and space point forward.  

The Celtics only had 7 TOVS.  Sam with a very off night on tons and tons of wide open looks (2-10)

There are no good losses but this loss may actually pay dividends by reinforcing the reality that the NBA game is 48 minutes long, not 24.  And that having respect for your opponent is way more than just another cliche.