BSJ Game Report: Trail Blazers 129, Celtics 119 - Hot Blazers trump Tatum's brilliance

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics' 129-119 loss to the Portland Trailblazers, with BSJ insight and analysis:

Box Score

HEADLINES

We deserved better. I’ll have more on this later, but this ending was so absurd that it deserves to be mentioned often. The Celtics and Blazers played about 43 minutes of a great basketball game, and then the last five minutes was an officiating nightmare. The Celtics might still have lost the game, but everyone watching deserved to see something better than that. 

On the bright side... Aaron Nesmith stayed hot, and Evan Fournier got hot. Those two combined for 37 points on 14-17 shooting (9-11 3pt). 

The Celtics just got beat... but it still hurts. “We had a couple of defensive errors, and they made us pay for every one of them,” Brad Stevens said after the game. “And then we had a lot of great defensive possessions where they made us pay anyways because they're, like I said, playing really well.”

Give Portland credit, they were hitting some tough shots. They deserved that win. Had the game ended normally with the same score, this would have simply been a “tip your cap” kind of night. 

However, this was a rough night overall for Boston as New York and Miami won, pushing Boston down in the 7th seed and the play-in tournament for the time being. The upcoming two-game series against Miami starting Sunday is looking bigger and bigger.

TURNING POINTS

Evan Fournier actually described the turning points perfectly when he said “I thought there were two moments in the game that I thought were momentum breakers. The goaltending was one because they hit two threes after that, and the technical for Marcus. Then Carmelo hits a three and that’s the game right there.”

Tristan Thompson’s goaltending (which was very much not an offensive goaltend), could have put Boston up one. Instead, CJ McCollum and Carmelo Anthony hit 3-pointers to put Portland up 7. 

Crew chief Sean Wright was asked after the game about the call, and he said “it is reviewable if Boston uses their coach’s challenge. The challenging team must call a legal timeout and signal for a coach’s challenge.  When Coach Stevens calls a timeout, the ball was already put in play with Portland having possession therefore we could not grant Boston a timeout.”

Then Marcus Smart got tossed for what the refs determined to be an intentional shot to Jusuf Nurkic’s groin. That was a long review and a questionable decision, and it left Boston without their best defender for the final 1:56. It was 120-117 Portland at the time, and they ended the game on a 9-2 run .

TOP PLAY

https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1389006100268077056

THREE UP

Jayson Tatum: He followed up his 60 with a 33-spot, two more points than Bird in his follow up game. According to Celtics stat guru Dick Lipe (via Mark Murphy), Tatum now has 128 points over his last three games, the most prolific three-game stretch in Celtics history. 

Evan Fournier: He shot 8-10 despite having to deal with an extended battle with the after-effects of COVID-19. This was a huge step forward for him on the court, but judging from his comments after the game, I’m not sure I can declare him back. More on that in a moment.

Aaron Nesmith: He is shooting with confidence now, and we’re starting to see what all the fuss was about on draft night. It took a while, but this dude is living up to the “absolute sniper” stuff.

“Just sticking with it. Continuing to work and continuing to do the work,” he said of trying to find his shot. “The early mornings – still waking up every morning and getting to the gym to get extra shots up. Consistency – even if it’s not falling, I’m going to keep shooting. So as long as I keep doing that and keep the same mindset, they’ll continue to fall.”

THREE DOWN

Tristan Thompson: He looks for his own shot a little too much. It’s odd to say on a 4 assist night, but it was also a 1-6 shooting, 2 point, -20 night. 

Jaylen Brown: He had a rough shooting night. He finished 6-22, his second straight night shooting poorly. The slump coincides with the right ankle problems that he had been having, so I have a feeling they’re related. 

Marcus Smart: A 4-14 shooting night isn’t what the Celtics needed, and his step-back 3-point attempt late in the game was a bit much. He dribbled the ball up, didn’t pass once, and took a step-back with :15 on the shot clock. He’d just hit a corner 3 and a floater so he was clearly feeling himself, but that was not the time for a heat-check. 

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

This game highlights how much earlier losses hurt. This was not a bad loss at all. Portland hit some amazing shots. 

Let’s put the officiating stuff aside for now (I’ll tackle that separately). Portland deserved to win this game and they ended up making more plays than Boston. That happens. But it happening now is a big problem for Boston. 

The Celtics risk falling into the play-in, which means no week off to prepare for an opponent or get healthier. They’d have to play their stars big minutes if the game is close, and that would put them at a bigger disadvantage against a top seed. 

Now those earlier bad losses are coming back to haunt them. Instead of having some wiggle room, these losses are starting to become killers. There’s no accounting for facing a hot team anymore. They didn’t leave themselves any ability to absorb an officiating-influenced loss. They needed everything to go their way and it didn’t in this game. 

I’ve got plenty of thoughts about how this game went, but in the end, it’s Boston’s own fault that they’re even in this spot. This loss could be massively influential on the standings when it should have been a frustrating but, ultimately, inconsequential loss.