Marcus Morris put everyone on notice on Saturday night in wake of the ugliest home loss in the Brad Stevens era, a 28-point blown lead after the Celtics scored a season-high 74 points in the first half. There were plenty of contributing factors to the defeat (Kyrie Irving’s injury, the Clippers shooting the lights out) but none of these should serve as excuses for the worst blown lead at the TD Garden in 16 years against a team that had five new players making their debuts after the trade deadline. The Celtics are 6-0 without Irving this year at the Garden and had a 21-point headstart on the Clippers once he suffered his knee sprain.
In the wake of such an alarming defeat and pointed comments from Morris, it felt necessary to do an autopsy on the second half last night. Were things as bad as Morris made them out to be? Which players might he have been targeting specifically? And was he the right guy to be sending this message in the wake of his own performance? Let’s sort through the mess to figure out just how big of a bump in the road this loss was on a team that has been struggling to match high expectations for the first 56 games of the year. A power ranking of the C's second-half issues:
5. A lack of hustle (featuring Marcus Morris): There was no mistake about who the more motivated team was in the second half. The Clippers were the ones making the extra effort, pushing the ball off of any missed basket, hustling to make an extra rotation on defense and scrapping for loose balls. The Celtics did not fight fire with fire on this front. In fact, the man lighting up his teammates was one of the players that could have been playing with a better effort at times.
One example comes early in the third quarter, when Morris misses an open 3 here at the top of the key. He holds his followthrough and moves into a home run trot to get back up the floor. Meanwhile, Morris’ defender (Danilo Gallinari) is sprinting up the court after a contest to get himself in position for a bucket. By the time Morris figures this out, it’s too late. He gets hit with the full court pass and gets an easy two. Al Horford (who was brutal on both ends Saturday) didn’t have the speed to get back either but Morris has to have better awareness here and get his butt in gear.
Another example comes midway through the third quarter. Morris is providing help-side support in the paint off his man Patrick Beverley on the wing. The kickout eventually comes to Morris and his closeout attempt is pitiful. He runs full speed with his hands down, giving himself no chance to put on the brakes or contest a drive. Beverley flies past him and knocks down an uncontested runner.
These plays were scattered throughout the night for Boston’s defense among several members of the roster. While the Celtics did deserve to get lit up in some form, Morris may not have been the best messenger given his own effort on Saturday night.
4. Jayson Tatum thinking he had a mismatch with Patrick Beverley: The Clippers don’t have many above-average defensive players but Patrick Beverley is easily the best of the bunch. He’s small at 6-foot-1 but can be tenacious with his ball pressure and smart with his defensive positioning. The 20-year-old Tatum found that out the hard way on Saturday night as Doc Rivers had Beverley guard the second-year forward for 78 percent of the possessions he was on the floor. Tatum, perhaps understandably at first, saw an 8-inch mismatch that he could take advantage of. However, reality provided a much different result for Tatum, giving the young forward a lesson about going at an elite defensive guard.
Beverley was fantastic all night, limiting Tatum to 1-of-6 shooting when guarding him head-to-head while forcing four turnovers, including a pair of charges. Despite these struggles, the Celtics repeatedly went to this matchup without getting much out of it beyond some early free throws.
For a Clippers team that has struggled mightily on defense all year (see: the first half) and lacks proper defensive personnel, the Celtics fell right into Doc Rivers’ trap by attempting to go at Beverley. It’s a strategy Stevens uses all the time with Marcus Smart against bigger defenders but he and Tatum failed to recognize there were other weaknesses in the Clippers defense that were far better targets for Boston’s offense. In a game that turned into a shootout, wasted possessions like these loomed large, especially when they happened time and time again.
3. The usual poor shot selection/decision making from the usual suspects: Without Kyrie Irving, the Celtics offense went into hero mode for the majority of the second half and the results were not pretty. Ball movement was limited at times as Terry Rozier took over the lion's share of point guard duties and as a result, the C’s offense turned into a game of 1-on-1 on a lot of possessions. Rozier (3-of-7 FG) and Jaylen Brown (1-of-7 FG) have been the top culprits of questionable shot selection all year and they were just as guilty on Saturday night of not only taking tough shots, but also failing to find open teammates on the perimeter. Notice how Morris is waving for a wide open 3 here from Brown who isn’t looking for anybody after his driving lane was cut off.
This possession ultimately ended up with Brown missing a pull-up 3 off the dribble.
Rozier played 18 minutes in the second half and finished with zero assists, which is more reflective of his struggles at the PG position than anything else. Stevens moved away from Rozier handling the ball earlier this year, but he gave Rozier far too much rope in this game. However, the veterans don’t escape the blame here either. Horford (0-of-4) seemed allergic to the paint. Smart (1-of-5) took a few ambitious pull-up 3s early in the clock while Morris (2-of-8) morphed back into the iso player that drove Celtics fans crazy last year on a few possessions.
The bottom line about the Celtics' offensive woes? The finger deserves to be pointed at everyone, short of Daniel Theis, who just does his job out there. From turnovers (Hayward and Tatum had three each) to bad shots (everyone else), plenty of blame to go around here.
2. Brad Stevens' rotation decisions: The Celtics are a very deep and talented team, but they remain a flawed one on the defensive end, particularly when Aron Baynes is not available. That’s the hand Stevens was dealt on Saturday night and his rotation was shortened yet again once Irving was sidelined in the second quarter.
From there, Stevens relied on his familiar substitution patterns. He stuck with Rozier at point guard for virtually the entire third quarter as Boston’s offense could not get anything towards the basket. Rozier’s playmaking struggles have been well documented at BSJ and the Clippers took advantage of that on Saturday.
However, my bigger gripe with Stevens from the defeat comes with his personnel choices from a defensive standpoint. The Clippers played three small quick guards for virtually the entire second half in some form, going with three of Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Landry Shamet for essentially the final 18 minutes of the game.
Those are tough players for anyone to guard, but asking Gordon Hayward and Jayson Tatum to try to chase Shamet or Williams around screens went about as expected (Shamer was 4-of-5 from 3, team-high 13 points in second half). Ultimately, Stevens stuck Jaylen Brown on Shamet for a stretch, which slowed him down for a bit, but problems cropped again turning crunch time as Boston had no hope of slowing down Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell in the pick-and-roll while Brown sat on the bench (Hayward/Tatum played over him).
Outside of Marcus Smart, Brown is Stevens’ best backcourt defender and he was nowhere to be seen in crunch time as Tatum and Rozier were torched by the Williams (five assists) running the pick-and-roll action with Harrell, which forced weak side help and then countless open 3-point looks for Clippers (9-of-17 in second half).
A guy like Shane Larkin (remember him?) would have drawn this assignment last year but Brad Wanamaker does not have the speed or Stevens’ trust to stick with these guys. In any case, the Clippers ran the same play over and over and the Celtics, thanks to their personnel, couldn’t stop it. Some of that falls on the players, but Stevens needs to better adapt to matchups. He has to adjust his lineups better based on matchups and a stubbornness to do so on Saturday was a big reason why the Celtics lost the game and surrendered 70 points in the second half. Playing three natural guards out of (Rozier, Smart, Brown, Wanamaker) would have given the C’s a fighting chance to slow down the Clippers offense.
1. Defensive breakdowns in transition: NBA teams love to push the ball for a smart reason — catching an unorganized defense leads to easy baskets. The Clippers not only have the guards to run but they’ve got the speed at several possessions to put pressure on their opponents and Boston wilted under that pressure on countless occasions in the second half.
The Clippers scored 14 fast-break points following the break after earning zero in the first half. A lot of those buckets were simply a lack of hustle and communication from Boston’s defenders. Let’s sort through some of the more glaring examples and figure out who deserves blame here:
Shamet open 3: This isn’t even much of a fast break as all five Celtics are back. Still, Tatum tries to switch onto Gallinari as he brings the ball up the floor instead of finding his man (Lou Williams). Smart takes Williams bringing the ball up, while his man remains uncovered in the corner. Theis is the closest defender but he’s afraid of leaving his man (Harrell) for an easy bucket. By the time he hands him off, it’s too late. Shamet gets the ball for an open look at a 3. Better hustle and communication here takes away that look.
Blame: Theis/lack of communication
Green easy layup: A bad shot by Morris leads to a quick run out by the Clippers. Hayward goes for the offensive rebound, which leaves the C’s exposed a bit, but they still have enough bodies back to contain everyone. Green beats Morris down the floor though and then Morris tries to hand him off to Horford or Brown, neither of whom can pick him up. Horford is the last man back but he's also guarding the ball so he can't give up an open lane and take Green. Brown and Morris essentially give up on the player to guard the perimeter, which opens up an uncontested 2-on-1. Easy pass and layup. Terrible communication and effort.
Blame: Brown and Morris
Zubac easy layup: Even Smart had his issues on defense. Watch here as he tries to hand off his man (Zubac) to Theis while Theis is involved in the pick-and-roll defense. This is strategically a wise play to try to get size back on Zubac, but it’s far too late for Theis to get back into position here. Zubac rolls to the lane and gets fouled to prevented an uncontested layup.
Blame: Smart
Zubac dunk: An aggressive Rozier goes for an offensive rebound here off the Horford airball and pays for it. The Celtics are forced to cross match while Rozier gets into the play as Clippers have a 5-on-4 advantage. Smart steps up on the ball here to prevent the 3 and trusts that someone will pick up his man Zubac behind him. Morris points to someone to take Zubac without realizing he is the closest man. Tatum is in the weakside corner but rotates too late. Easy dunk for Zubac.
Blame: Morris/Tatum
There were more of these as the game went on, it’s pretty much the same formula on all of these plays. This team was not on the same page defensively and didn’t react to cover up for each other’s mistakes in time. The Clippers made them pay for almost all of their miscues, as any good team should do.
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