After Losing To The Jazz, It's Safe To Say The Celtics Are Currently Playing Like Complete Shit
The Celtics had a prime opportunity to end this long West Coast trip on a positive note last night. It's certainly not the easiest thing in the world to go into Utah and win, and that is especially true this season when they are the hottest team in the NBA and own the league's best record. Heading into the trip I think we were all in agreement that a 3-2 record would have been a successful trip given who was on their schedule.
So in that regard, coming home 2-3 with back to back losses to end the trip is not what I would call "successful". In fact, things a brutal right now for this team and it dates back to the end of January. Since collapsing in the fourth quarter against the Spurs on January 30th, this team is 2-5. If you go back a little further to when they started playing again after their 3 postponed games, the Celts are 5-8. That's simply not good enough no matter how you want to slice it. Now, it should also be stated that pretty much all the teams around them in the East are in the same boat. In fact, when you woke up this morning the Celts were still closer to the 3 seed than the 7th seed, but don't let that fool you. This team is playing some absolutely pathetic basketball right now and has been for almost a month.
There's certainly no shame in losing on the road in Utah. They are beating everyone, now winners of 16 of their last 17. But that doesn't excuse the quality of play we're seeing from the Celts. I hate to break it to you, but this isn't solely a Kemba problem. His offense is a gigantic issue, but he's not alone. Things may ease up to end the first half, but it won't matter if collectively we see a team play like we did last night. It's not going to matter who they play.
With that said, let's dive in.
The Good
- If there's one person I have no problems with this morning, it's Jaylen. After missing the last two games with knee soreness, not only was it a relief to see him back in the lineup but he looked like a guy that never missed a beat
He felt like the only player that was actually trying. If not for Jaylen's offense, this game would have been a blowout from the jump. It makes me happy when he plays well on National TV because the rest of the world gets to see what we've been seeing all year. Jaylen is an All NBA caliber player this season. Fact, not opinion. The annoying part is the team is wasting these type of performances, but for him to put up 33 on 12-20 (3-6) against the best defense in the NBA, well it's hard to have too many issues with Jaylen this morning, at least offensively.
You knew as soon as he came out and hit his first three 3s that he was locked in, but then we saw a player who is so much more comfortable scoring off the dribble. Jaylen's body control is so much better this season when he attacks the paint, he's at the point where he is inching closer and closer to becoming an unstoppable scorer. Not only can he score at all three levels now, but he can do it in a variety of ways. It's been beautiful to watch all year long.
- The same could be said for Daniel Theis. He's another guy that had himself a great trip
So, his three point shooting is real. This isn't just a hot streak, this might just be who he is. He's now up to 41% on the season on a career high attempts. Since the start of January, he's been shooting at an insane 56% clip from three. This is what I don't get about the people who think Theis stinks. I'm not sure we are watching the same player.
How impactful was he? Well, the Jazz didn't pull away until Theis fouled out with about 5 minutes left when this play was called a foul against him
That's a tough break but not really surprising considering the War on Theis. From that moment on we saw the Jazz put the Celts in P&R until their eyes bled, and Mitchell took advantage. His shooting will come down to earth at some point, I do not think he'll shoot 56% from three the rest of the way, but the fact is that his outside shooting is now a reliable weapon, and that's very important to help create space.
- That's it. Shall we continue?
The Bad
- Notice how I didn't put Tatum in the good section despite his 23 points. Well, that's because I thought he stunk in this game. He came around a little in the fourth quarter, but by then the damage was done. He was 3-13 through the first three quarters for 14 points. In a game where Kemba once again couldn't buy a bucket and you are playing the best team in the league, your best player cannot start 3-13. His inefficiency played just as big a role in their struggles as Kemba's, and that's the truth. You may not want to say it because he's been great all year, but he wasn't that Tatum last night. Once again he let non calls impact his game, which is really starting to annoy me.
When you are talked about being the level of player that Tatum is, expectations become unrealistic. What I mean is that you're expected to be lights out every single time you step on the floor. Not 3-13 when your team desperately needs someone to step up and help Jaylen offensively. Not only that, but he didn't exactly hit the boards either, which was obviously costly.
He was 8-22 against the Suns and 7-20 last night. On no planet is 15-42 acceptable and it's no surprise this team lost both. They go as Tatum goes and he's been brutal offensively these last two games.
- It's pretty annoying that once again we witnessed a role player somehow have the best scoring game of their season. This time it was Joe Ingles and his 24 points to go along with 5 3PM. At no point this season has he scored that many points. He had one game where he made 7 3PM, but other than that he's never made 5. That's the random shit that is just annoying. Nobody can stay with Joe Ingles or defend him without fouling? We live in a world where Ingles took more FTs than either Jay. I mean we saw him beat guys like Jaylen off the dribble defensively. There is no excuse for that shit.
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- There had to be at least 7 different plays where there was either a loose ball that went out of bounds or a rebound that the Celts were unable to grab that then went out of bounds that immediately led to a Jazz three. Stupid, unavoidable mistakes that tend to only happen when you are playing some suck ass basketball.
Like this stretch for example in the third quarter. In a 9 point game the Celts give up this killer offensive rebound and score
Then, for some fucking reason because this team refuses to learn how to inbound the basketball, they turn it over passing it in despite there being ZERO pressure from the Jazz. A bonehead mistake that guess what? Immediately led to an easy two for the Jazz. At a time where you could have started to change momentum, instead through mental mistakes and poor effort things went the complete opposite way. This is the Celts being lazy and it happens way too often.
- You want to talk about bonehead mistakes, how many more times are we going to see Grant make killer bonehead fouls in the fourth quarter while in the bonus? It happened against the Kings in the final minute to put that game out of reach and it happened once again last night with this play right here
Once again the Celts had finally started to cut into the lead, got things down to four with plenty of time and momentum starting to shift their way. So what does Grant do? He makes a completely idiotic foul that he had no business even doing. There's no benefit from even touching Bogdanovic! The ball was going to the other side of the floor! You know the refs were calling everything tight in that second half, so you do that? Kills momentum, the lead goes back up to 6. Considering this now happened twice on this road trip, I wouldn't call it a fluke. He needs much better situational awareness.
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- The Celts had a few times in the fourth where the lead was cut to 4, but they couldn't get that one stop to truly get them over the hump. In reality, what happened was UTA made some dagger threes, so give them their credit. They out executed the Celts down the stretch of this game and they did it by making back breaking three after back breaking three
Sometimes you have to tip your cap to elite shot making, and that's what the Jazz did while the Celts missed pretty much everything they threw up in the final 3 minutes.
The Ugly
- I don't care if Kemba Walker somehow returns to his All NBA form offensively because that still wouldn't change the fact that the biggest issue for the Celts all season continues to be their piss poor defense. How else would you describe giving up 74 points in the second half? They nearly gave up their first half total in the third quarter alone. I don't care what they look like offensively, if you're going to give up 42 points in a quarter you deserve to lose. For a team that prides itself on defense, I'm certainly not seeing them actually play any. Where is the perimeter defense that was supposed to be so good? Where's limiting the points in the paint? Where is the defensive rebounding?
A lot will be made about their offensive struggles and rightfully so, but to me the more important issue is defensively. You have to be able to stop people if you want to be any good. We haven't seen this team play consistent defense at any point this season it feels like. That's weird because outside of not having Smart, all their other good defenders played.
- And last but not least, it's time to talk about Kemba.
For me there are two ways to look at Kemba. The health side and the basketball side. The health side has been fine. In fact I would argue that nothing we are seeing from him show that he's feeling the effects of his knee. He looks as good healh wise as I think anyone could have hoped. That's the good part.
The bad part is everything else. The basketball side of Kemba has been a barely NBA caliber player. That's about as big an issue as you could have. It's not just the shooting, which has been HORRIFIC
but he almost has what I would call Jeff Teague-itis. We're seeing Kemba just dribble…and dribble…and dribble…and not really look like he knows what to do. That's the very weird part of his first 10 games this season. It's like he's never played basketball before or something, it's bizarre.
So while Kemba was important in each of their wins this trip, he was also a big reason why they dropped their last two. Going 6-32 over the final two games combined with Tatum's 15-42 is a death wish. He's getting good looks too, but the man cannot buy a bucket and that's the truth.
There will be a lot of Celtics fans that give up on Kemba through his first 10 games. I get it, it's what fans do. I'm not there yet considering it's been 10 games but even I can't spinzone his offensive struggles right now. It's been really really bad. Way more harm than good have come in the Kemba minutes recently. I'm not even sure this is a Brad thing either, where he can try and get him going offensively with some easy looks. Kemba just isn't making anything right now.
The good news is it's a long season. You may as well stop the "trade Kemba" nonsense because I highly doubt there is even a market for him. Guys have slumps all the time, right now Kemba is in a gigantic slump, but all you can do is hope he snaps out of it. But there is no denying that he's been killing this team so far, because like it used to be with Isaiah, you overlook his defensive issues if he's able to give you efficient All Star level offense. We sure as sit aren't getting that at the moment and for this team to reach their potential, Kemba needs to show up.
If I had to give this team a grade over this trip, I'd probably go C/C-. Passable, but mostly pathetic. Theis and Thompson showed signs, Jaylen looks great, beating the Clippers was good. But they also threw away a winnable game in SAC, Kemba looks like a disaster and their defense stunk. Again, this team is still the 4 seed and could wake up tomorrow as the 3 seed, but they aren't playing anywhere close to that caliber of team. That needs to change, and change quickly.