The Celtics Getting Completely Throttled By The Lakers Was Your Classic Salt On The Wound Disaster

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If it feels like you've lived this exact situation before as a Celtics fan, it's because you have. In fact, it took place nearly 1 year ago to the day. 

On January 10th, the 28 win Celtics played a hard fought OT thriller against the Minnesota Timberwolves. You may remember that in that game, a Jrue Holiday 3PM put the Celtics up 2 points with 25 seconds left. All they needed was one stop to avoid OT and win the game. What happened? Derrick White fouled with 8 seconds left, Ant went to the line and forced OT. The Celts eventually pulled it out, despite their own doings making things much harder on themselves. They then flew out to MIL for a B2B, their 5th game in 7 days.

This all sounding familiar so far? The 31 win Celts up in the final seconds only to have self-inflicted boneheaded moves cause an OT they had no business being in? Hmmm

That next day, January 11th on the road against a rested MIL resulted in one of the biggest ass kickings of the year. Celts were down by 40 in the first half if I remember correctly, and their starters didn't play the second half. Nobody could hit a shot, the Bucks couldn't miss, and that was that.

This all sounding familiar as well? Celts down by 19 at the half shooting 39/30%, and the Lakers shooting 55% from 3? Hmmm.

That Celtics team was playing .500 basketball in January at the time. Immediately after that loss, we heard a lot of the same things we're now hearing today. Ultimately, that proved to be your classic 5 in 7 stretch with a B2B coming off an OT game. Nothing more, nothing less.

The point is, we have literally lived through this exact scenario, with this exact team, at this exact same time of year. It'll be OK.

Now, having said ALL that, one thing remains true. Losing any game, at any time, in any location, to the Lakers is shameful. Losing to that team will never be "acceptable" despite the context around the game. It's the Lakers. Whether you lose by 1 or by 25, it doesn't matter. The Celts should be very embarrassed of getting run out of the gym by a Lakers team that mostly stinks, even if you can understand why they maybe didn't have their legs. So what. Find a way. 

What you saw last night is the exact reason you cannot fuck around at the end of these games. The extra minutes against ATL (and the loss), the extra minutes against LAC, the travel, the 5 in 7, it all adds up. Outside of Porzingis, it was very clear everyone who played on Wednesday was gassed, from the two best players down to the last rotation player off the bench. They made their bed vs LAC and paid the price for it against LAL. No different from what we saw with MIN/MIL last year.

I think what prevents people from keeping the perspective around a game like last night is mostly because the Celts have been fucking around for the last few weeks. In reality, they're still in a fine spot this trip, with a win Saturday securing another 3-1 West Coast road trip. That's good! Since the TOR disaster loss, the Celts are now 3-2, and one of those losses was the ATL collapse, which is about a 1 in 1000000 scenario. Dropping those games is what makes the tough 5 in 7 B2B losses "feel" worse, but in reality, that spot is pretty commonly a loss. It's called a schedule loss for a reason. At the moment, things are just like the last WC trip. If someone told you the Celts would finish 3-1, you'd take it. It's not like they are now 0-3 or 1-2, they fucked around against LAC and the bill came due against LAL. That's life in the NBA. 

Now, let's begin.

The Good

- Really the only person that I find myself giving a pass to during this entire stretch is Kristaps Porzingis. Since his return to the lineup on 1/3, he's been pretty much exactly what the team has needed. He plays hard, he's been the only player who has shown to be consistent offensively, he's efficient, and outside of scheduled rest days, he's been available. Given he had the night off against LAC his legs were fresh, and he was honestly the only Celtic who played well in this game

Since that 1/3 return, KP is giving this team 19.7/8.0/1.7/1.3 on 49/46% with 2.6 3PM in just under 30 minutes a game. Unfortunately, the Celts are just 5-4 in those 9 games, but it certainly isn't because of KP's play. I'd argue he's looking more and more like his old self with each passing game. He finished with 56/40% last night and again, ever since he called out the team for playing like a bunch of soft assholes, he has taken it upon himself to show up. I'm not sure how anyone can't respect that. 

For long stretches of this game, it was pretty much only KP and Jaylen who were able to make a shot. Jaylen's efficiency fell off, but KP's remained consistent. A good mix of inside/outside possessions, attacking mismatches, and burying 3s. As I said, KP is pretty much the only player from this game that left it with a passing grade for me. For a team that severely lacks consistency, especially offensively, it's good to see KP isn't having that issue. It's also annoying as hell that the team is wasting these good KP performances, because lord knows how long he's going to be available for. I think that's what pisses me off the most, you're getting great KP performances and you're fumbling them time and time again. That has to stop.

- Alright we're done here. We can move on.

The Bad

- To be honest, it's hard to pick a place to start, but let's begin with the two best players. Both were nowhere close to good enough, and for different reasons.

While Jaylen's offense helped keep them afloat early (12 points on 5-10 in the first half) and he didn't turn the ball over, this was absolutely not a good showing from him in his 33 minutes. He eventually finished 7-19 (3-9) and a starter worst -18, and his 3rd quarter struggles (1-6, 1-4) were pretty significant. It wasn't just the offense either, this was another game where I would say Jaylen's defense was nowhere close to being good enough. Losing guys off ball, no real resistance at the point of attack, call it tired legs if you want, I'm just going to call it not good enough. 

When it was all said and done, just a 2-9 (1-6) second half from your second best player is not going to cut it. 

With Tatum, it was another game of low efficiency (5-12, 2-6), another game where he was not really all that aggressive, another game where he wasn't super engaged on the glass, and another game in which he missed multiple FTs. I'd say his defense was mostly fine, he was one of the few guys who I thought were OK on that end, but given how he looked energy wise and engagement wise, you almost wonder if they should have just sat him on the B2B. Considering he wasn't all that good in the LAC win either, this team is going to struggle if their two best players continue to throw up stinkers like this, that's just the truth.

There should never be a world in which Tatum only takes 12 shots. I see that as an issue everyone nis responsible for. The coaching for getting him looks, the players for not recognizing that Tatum should get some FGA, and Tatum himself for not being assertive. He's not a rookie, he's in Year 8 and is the best player on the team. He knows how to demand the ball and be aggressive offensively, we know what that looks like. Compare that to his approach last night, and it's two completely different players.

Was he tired? OK that I understand, but then why is he even playing. Get him the rest if he's so tired to the point where he's not willing to be assertive. 

- It may sound like a cop out, but while everyone tries to come up with all these out of the box ideas as to why the Celts are playing inconsistent basketball, it really seems like people just want to ignore the obvious answer because it's kind of boring.

The team wide shooting slump still exists. 

That's really it. The entire roster continues to slump all at the same time, and this recent loss is a perfect example of that. If you remove the KP/Jaylen offense (16-35, 5-14), the rest of the starters finished a combined 7-23 (4-12). That's a cool 30/33% from 60% of your starting lineup, including your best player.

Once we got to the bench? Would you believe me if I said things were even worse?

The group of Horford/Pritchard/Hauser/Kornet finished a combined 6-24 (3-15) and a -62, and this includes some garbage time Hauser 3PM, so really in the minutes that mattered, they were even worse.

Sorry, I don't care who you are playing, you are not beating any competent NBA team with only having 2 players show up offensively, and one of those players was still inefficient at 7-19.

As a team, the Celts finished 38/34%, but again that 4th quarter was garbage time so when you look at quarter 1-3, they put up 37/31%….as a team. At some point, you have to put the ball in the basket. That's sort of how the game of basketball works. Defensively, things weren't even a total disaster at times. The Celts held LAL to just 16 points in the 3rd quarter, more than good enough to cut into the lead right?

Wrong.

They would only trim 4 points off their 19 point lead because they once again could not make an open shot to save their lives. 

- Now I know what you're probably going to say. That the Celts need to take less 3s and more 2s on nights like this. Well, there's only one problem with that. In this loss, the 2pt issues were actually MUCH more of a problem. See for yourself

38% at the rim? Is that a joke? League average as you can see is 66% from that zone. You'll also notice the Celts went just 1-6 from the corners. So basically, the two zones that are the easiest to make shots from, the Celts could not make shit. On the flip side, the Lakers were league average in the RA (65%) and were 5-9 on their corner 3s.

There's your game.

In total, just 21-50 on 2pt FGA (42%). That is impossibly bad. Of their 90 FGA, over half were 2pt FGA and wouldn't you know it, the Celts had their second lowest scoring output of the season in another loss. This is why I always push back to the crowd that suggests the Celts taking more 2s is how they solve their offense. Those takes are said with the assumption that they never miss 2s, when in reality their 2pt FG% has been dogshit in all of these losses. The 3s are down and the 2s are up since January began and the results have been…..mediocre at best. 

- By now it should be no surprise that the Celts have to deal with everyone's magnet ball game. For whatever reason, that is their challenge this year. Contested, uncontested nothing seems to really matter right now. Last night was the 11th time the Lakers have taken 35 3PA, and their 42.9% is the 3rd highest percentage of those games. Essentially, last night was their 3rd best shooting night of the season.

Gabe Vincent, yea that asshole, went 4-7 from deep. It was the first time all year he's done that, and he was 5-21 heading into this game. The Celts found themselves in that first half hole for no other reason other than they were getting out-Mazulla Ball'd.

A 15 point 3PM difference at the break (down 19), the Celts and Lakers had taken the same amount of 3PA and FGA over the first 24 minutes. The difference was they went 11-20, and the Celts went 6-20, despite generating open looks on a consistent basis. That's where the shooting slump came back to bite them. We see it all the time, unless you are able to match your opponent's 3P production, you're going to be in trouble. If you are then ALSO missing all your 2s, well that's how you get your ass blown out.

- Another game of being completely destroyed around the margins. Celts got killed in the paint 46-36, lost the rebounding battle 53-42, lost the 2nd chance points battle 17-9, the fastbreak points battle 16-5 and of course, they were dogshit from the FT line missing 6 on the night.

So, not only could they not shoot. Not only could they not get stops. But they also were completely swept in the margin categories. I'm not sure it gets worse than that. 

The Ugly

- Disaster performance from the starting backcourt, and something that is more of the norm as of late. One of the biggest things that makes this year feel a little bit different is the shooting regression we're seeing from the Stock Exchange. The Celts were able to handle Tatum/Brown inefficient nights because Jrue/Derrick were able to balance things out with their efficient offense. Now that they are struggling, that help is no longer there and you can see the impact.

A combined 2-11 (2-6) with only 4 AST and some pretty awful defense, those two are simply too important to no show. I mean it's no secret, as Derrick White goes, this team goes. He's the secret weapon so to speak, and it's no surprise that his struggle games tend to end in losses

I consider December 7th the start of this collective rut, and Derrick might be the one struggling the most. Over those 21 games he's shooting just 40/34%. Over his last 9 (since the OKC loss), he's shooting 32/23%. How is that even possible? Watching him play right now I see a guy that's clearly in his own head. Bizarre turnovers, no confidence in his shot to the point where now he's not even being aggressive. That's the shit he used to do when he had hair. For this offense to work, not only does Derrick have to be aggressive, but he has to be efficient. 

With Jrue, it's really been no better. He's a guy who had the night off the game before, and followed that up with this

I am working on a theory that in all of these bad losses where the team shoots like shit, they pretty much always all start with Jrue smoking bunnies around the rim. If he makes his early postup/floater/layup, for some reason the entire team shoots well. If he misses that shot early like he did last night, it's as if that triggers everyone to be a collective brick. Keep this in mind when you watch these games and you'll see what I mean.

When you add in Pritchard's 2-12 and overall awful night, the collective production from the guards in this game is some of the most disgusting shit you'll ever see. Paint FGA, open 3PA, none of it made a difference

- Do you want to know why I obsess about FTs? Because they matter. How you perform at the FT line can completely change the dynamic of a game, which is exactly what happened in this loss.

At the 5:30 mark of the 3rd quarter, momentum was starting to swing in the Celts favor. The Lakers had gone about 4 minutes without a point, and the Celts chipped a 19 point deficit down to 12 as Jayson Tatum stepped to the FT line for a pair.

He went 0-2.

After another stop, it was then Jaylen Brown's turn to go to the line for a pair.

He went 0-2.

What could have (and should have) been the Celts taking a 12 point lead down to 8, quickly spiraled after that momentum blunder. The Lakers went down and got 2 AD FTs (he made both), then after a KP turnover led to the Lakers scoring in transition, in just 1:20 seconds of game play the lead was back to 16. That was the game right there.

Had Tatum and Brown made their FTs, you give yourself half a quarter to continue to put pressure on. Now, the Lakers may start to get tense given they were already struggling to score. Instead, a lack of execution is what gave them new life, and the rest was history.

On the night, the Celts finished 12-18 from the FT line for 66%. That, is dogshit. In fact, in their last 6 losses the Celts are shooting 74% from the FT line as a team, which is 24th in the NBA. Sorry, that's pathetic.

While Jaylen missing isn't exactly a shock, the Tatum issues from the FT line this year is something I consider very concerning. He's having BY FAR his worst FT shooting season of his career

and too many times are we seeing him go to the line and not miss one, but both. It happened in the NO narrow win, then against ATL he missed the big FT to put them up 3, then last night he went 4-7. He's too good a shooter and scorer to be this inconsistent from the FT line to the point where it is now starting to impact the results of these games.

- Celts are 3-8 after a win since December 15th. That's fun.

So look, just like last year after the MIL ass kicking, you flush this one down the toilet and turn the page. As I said at the top of the blog, a 3-1 road trip is still very much on the table, which would make this a successful trip. At the same time, winning that game will require this team to actually play well and ya know, put the ball in the basket. Seems like a pretty easy concept, but then again nothing is easy for this team right now.