Few Things Are More Annoying Than Watching The Celtics Choke Away A Winnable Game

Jason Miller. Getty Images.

When these two teams faced off a few weeks ago, fans of the shorthanded Cavs walked away feeling pretty good that they found a way to have a competitive finish in a narrow loss. It was your standard moral victory stuff, and there was some truth to it I guess.

Last night when these two teams faced off, fans of the shorthanded Celts (no Brown/White) walked away feeling pretty good that they only lost a game by 4 points against a Cavs team that had pretty much all of their guys back and active. It was the other side's time for a moral victory.

And while I can understand the logic behind it, where it's not exactly a stretch to say "OK, if you lose by 4 without your 2nd and 3rd best player, things will most likely be OK when they play" I'm someone who has a little bit of a different take on what transpired in this loss.

The Celtics choked this win away. They had an opportunity to take over the top spot in the East and the NBA's best record, they had a double digit lead heading into the final quarter, and they fumbled it away in horrific fashion. 

I'm supposed to feel good about that? 

Big picture I get it, it's a game in early December while you were missing 40% of your starting lineup. The world is not ending, and it's on to the next one. I get that. At the same time, these H2Hs against CLE will ALL matter when it comes to potential tiebreakers. I'm not really interested in playing the "well, they didn't have their guys" card when without those guys the Celts were still able to build a 12 point lead heading into the final 12 minutes and were up 9 with 7 minutes to go.

This roster has enough talent even without White/Brown to close a game like that out. I'm not someone who is going to tell you the game the Celtics won against CLE was big and meant something, but this time because they lost it's actually no big deal and doesn't mean anything. Screw that. If you want to boast when the Celts win, you have to take it on the chin when they collapse and blow a very winnable game on the road against a good team. 

At the end of the day, it came down to execution. Your guys didn't, their guys did. On a night when the "others" needed to step up, yours didn't and theirs did. When it became closing time their star came through, yours didn't. It's OK to admit that, it won't hurt.

With that said, let's dive in.

The Good

- It's pretty ridiculous that Kristaps Porzingis is able to miss months and months of basketball and then the second he comes back he immediately shows no signs of rust. You would think it might take a guy a couple of games to get his rhythm, but with KP it's as if he's never missed a second of action when you watch him on either end of the floor. His impact is insane and the fact that there's essentially been zero rust in either his offense or defense doesn't make any goddamn sense

Considering we didn't even think KP would be active for this matchup, it was good to see everything we hypothesized when it came to his impact against CLE pretty much come to fruition. We didn't see him in any game against CLE last playoffs and we didn't see him in the first meeting, and I'd say his performance last night was a great example of why he's problematic in this matchup.

Defensively, he completely shuts off the paint/rim scoring which is important against a backcourt like Mitchell/Garland who love to get into the paint and finish at the rim. Mobley got whatever he wanted once he got the ball on the block which was a huge reason the Cavs finished with 60 points in the paint in the first meeting. It was a glaring issue when it came to a lack of rim protection on the Celts' side. Last night? The Cavs finished with just 40. Thank you Kristaps.

Offensively, his impact is twofold. First, you have to guard him from 35 feet, which removes one of the Cavs' shot blockers from being able to stay at the rim and be there to contest drives. If you don't, you're risking allowing a near 40% shooter to catch fire. That's not a great strategy.

Then, for a team that is going to have to play Garland in these big moments, you saw Brad's vision come to life in terms of beating a switch. A simple screen with whoever Garland (or really any smaller player) is guarding is going to give you a lose/lose situation as a defense. Either you don't help and let KP simply shoot over the defender, or you do send help and he finds an open 3pt shooter, like he did when he found Sam Hauser. It's literally Brad's entire plan that he explained the day they traded for KP

This was one of the bigger talking points after the first meeting. Cavs fans said not having their wing defenders was why Tatum went off (whoops), and Celts fans said that with KP, the Cavs had no real solution for that matchup. Despite the loss in this game, that was pretty much proven to be true. Even with Okoro/LeVert active, the Celts still got their 3PA volume up (49), and Tatum still went for 30+. On the flip side, there was no real solution to limit KP other than just hoping he misses and the refs swallow their whistle on his post ups.

- Outside of his very frustrating inability to hit late-game layups, I thought Tatum was overall pretty damn good in this game. Given the offensive firepower that was out, this could not be a Tatum no-show night. He had to produce, and he had to be efficient while he did it. For all that talk about how Tatum only produces because he's on a superteam, you won't hear too much from those people about Tatum still going for 33/8/4/1/1 with 4 3PM in his 37 minutes

Watching the way Tatum manipulated this game was a great example of why those who actually watch and understand what they are seeing know that Jayson Tatum IS the system. He's simply able to adapt his game to whatever the team needs in that moment. If it's a night where he has to be THE GUY and take the majority of the shots, he can deliver. If it's a night where he has to be a playmaker and create for others, he can deliver. 

I could make the case that no superstar of his stature, who has his amount of accomplishments and talent sacrifices more on a nightly basis than Tatum. You look around the league at the Jokic, Giannis, SGA's etc and you see their gaudy numbers compared to a night where Tatum might have like 26/10/6, and somehow people choose to discredit Tatum's talent level. No you morons, if the Celts played the same way as those other teams where Tatum had a 36% usage and got to take every single shot, he would produce just like the rest of those guys. 

You also have to remember that Jayson Tatum plays with a rookie whistle, something those other MVP-caliber players do not have to deal with. Actually that's not true, the Jokic whistle is somehow even worse than Tatum's but you get the point. I'm pretty sure any big time player gets whistles on plays like these, which were clear fouls

Again, unfortunately, his close is partially what contributed to this loss, but overall Tatum gave this team more than enough to win a shorthanded game on the road against an elite team, which is what the expectation is for the best player.

- We're witnessing an all time heater season from Payton Pritchard and I'm happy to report there are absolutely zero signs that he's going to slow down. You may as well get used to shit like this because this level of play is simply who Payton Pritchard has developed into. Nothing about what we see from him on a game-to-game basis is surprising anymore. This has become his standard

In a game like this, it was crucial for the "others" to level up and make up the near 50 points of offense the Celts were missing. Sadly, Pritchard was really the only one who got the memo. He was also the only guy on the team who decided to show up in the 4th quarter (17 points on 5-7, 2-3) while playing all 12 minutes and at this point, the gap between Pritchard and everyone else for 6MOY grows larger and larger by the game.

Even as a smaller defender, Pritchard still finds ways to get stops. You may score at times against him, but he's going to make you work like hell to get your points. Between his ball pressure and his strength which allows him to guard the post somewhat effectively, the one thing that's a "weakness" that teams might try to attack when he's on the floor isn't really a weakness. 

In a playoff series, that was always going to be the risk. For him to be playable, he can't become a target. The jump we're seeing on that end from Payton is what is going to keep him on the floor regardless of the matchup. Then you add in everything he does offensively, and that's how you get the best season of his career to date.

- That's really it, let's move on.

The Bad

- I understand he's 34 and played a lot of basketball this summer, but I need Jrue Holiday to snap out of this CTE funk. This was one of those games where he was going to have to level up in terms of his role and production, and in reality we got maybe one of his worst two-way performances of the young season.

The issue is this was not a one-off. We're starting to look at a trend

During this 5 game stretch, Holiday is shooting just 30/14% It'd be one thing if these were all 3s or something, but what really twists the knife is the fact that during this stretch Holiday has REALLY struggled at the rim. This was his shot chart from this loss

and during his 5 game stretch, he's shooting just 53% at the rim. That is a brutal number. He has the 2nd most restricted area FGA over that stretch and the lowest FG%. That's a tough combination. By comparison, you have guys like Tatum at 69%, Jaylen at 60%, White at 83% etc. You have to make your layups, especially when the team is shorthanded.

The problem wasn't just the offense and the poor decisions to drive into traffic and turn it over. Holiday also found himself getting cooked defensively on multiple possessions by Mitchell, especially late. When you get nothing offensively from Jrue, he has to make up the difference defensively, and last night was a case of getting nothing on both ends. The entire world knew Mitchell was going to be the guy in the 4th quarter, and he finished 6-6 (4-4) with a majority of those points coming against Jrue. 

To me, it feels more like Jrue is coasting and not really playing interested than some sort of washed-up situation. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, because this is exactly the game you shouldn't be mailing in. It's a long year and Jrue has done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt, but it's also very apparent when he's giving you a CTE performance and it couldn't have come at a worse time because that's what we got. 

- I know he has lifetime immunity, but this was a tough shooting night for Al. Like Jrue, he was going to have to be one of the guys to pick up the offensive slack, and he responded with a tough 3-10 (2-9) in his 30 minutes. Time and time again he had a wide open corner 3PA that the Celts needed, and he didn't make a single shot in the second half (0-4, 0-4).

Holiday and Horford combined for just 2 points in the second half of this game on 1-7 (0-5) shooting. Love them both, but that stinks and it played a pretty big role in the outcome of this game. 

- There seemed to be some annoyance with the Cavs fouling up 3 with 30 seconds left, with chatter around the NBA needing to adjust those rules.

No. Sorry. That's pathetic. If you don't like a team being smart and preventing you from taking and making a 3PA, don't put yourself in that position. No rules need to be changed. Nobody complains when Joe fouls up 3, so tough shit that the Cavs were smart enough to do it to BOS. The issue isn't the strategy, it's blowing a 9 point lead with 7 minutes left to the point where now you NEED to make a 3 in that spot. 

- Just 17 assists on the night which has to be one of the lowest totals of the season, and a 40/34% split goes a long way in explaining why that number was so low, but it wasn't everything.

Too often, especially late, we saw the Celts revert to iso basketball. You'll never believe this, but the offense cratered when that happened. This isn't to say iso possessions are bad, if there's a matchup you can exploit, you should do it. But an overabundance of iso basketball where you spam the same shit time and time again is not the way. It felt like the Celts were too focused on the Tatum/Garland matchup at times and not enough focus on moving the ball and forcing the Cavs defense to make decisions.

You pair poor late game offense with a night of no real defense allowing the Cavs to drop 115 on 48/47% while also getting to the line 25 times and that's how these bad losses happen. 

- I didn't exactly love the execution when it came to the late game ATO down 3. I'm not sure if the Cavs just blew this play up and took away the options, but in that spot, you have to find a way to get a shot up knowing that the Cavs are going to be looking to foul

Execution folks, it matters.

- I'm not sure if I should take this as a positive or be extremely annoyed with it, maybe a combination of both?

Celts basically blow teams out or lose close, it's actually crazy. 

The Ugly

- Everything about the 4th quarter. Entering this frame, the Celts had a 12 point lead with Tatum on the bench. At this point, all you need to do is survive those minutes. If you can extend the lead? Great. But at the very minimum, you need to find a way to survive those minutes of Tatum rest.

Shockingly, the Celts did just that! When Tatum came back into the game in the 4th quarter, the Celts led by 9 points with 7:16 left. From there, they allowed the Cavs to close 31-18. Considering 9 of those points came at the FT line, that means the Celts only scored 9 points via baskets over the final 7 minutes. It was a complete and utter collapse on both ends of the floor. I mean look at this shit!

That's what you call puking all over yourself folks. I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I closed by eyes last night I couldn't stop replaying these plays over and over and over 

Sorry, but those are plays you HAVE TO make in that situation. Especially the one at 51 seconds down 103-101. This is what I mean when I talk about a difference in execution. If you execute down the stretch, you win this game. Instead, we had Tatum missing wide open layups on one end, and then nobody on the perimeter providing any sort of resistance on the other.

Said another way, that's losing basketball. All you had to do was protect a 12 point lead and instead, the Celts threw up arguably one of their worst quarters of the entire season. That's annoying.

The good news is the Celts have a chance to wash this bad taste out of their mouth tonight with a B2B against MIA. One would imagine Al and KP sit, but they should have Jaylen and White back in the mix, and if there's one thing we know about this team it's that they are quick to respond when they drop a game they shouldn't.

But make no mistake, they choked away a chance to make another statement last night, and that's on them.