When Ime Udoka visualized how his TD Garden coaching debut would go, he probably saw confetti raining down from the rafters, not the boos of fans whose Friday nights were ruined.
“One thing I can’t stand as a coach is to get punked out there, and I felt they came out and punked us, outplayed us, played harder than us,” Udoka said after the Celtics blowout loss at the hands of the Toronto Raptors.
That’s a good way of putting it. The Celtics got punked by following a very familiar formula: They took an opponent too lightly, they gave that team some life and confidence, and then when things didn’t go their way they sulked and shrugged their way to an awful loss.
“I think we were too relaxed,” Jayson Tatum admitted. “We didn’t play hard enough. They just lost on their home court, we should have expected much more of a punch from them.”
The Raptors won’t be very good this year, but they won’t roll over for many teams. They have pride. They’ll make you earn your win.
Boston seems to want those wins served to them, as if Fred VanVleet will step in front of the official at the tip, raise the cloche off a platter, and offer up a W without so much as a token fight.
That's not how the Raptors operate. And when the fight got too tough, the Celtics crumbled under the weight of missed shots and officials whistles.
“They make you play different,” Al Horford said. “You have to move the ball more. You have to do certain things. I don’t think we did enough of that. So I just think that got to us and it just kind of deflated us on defense.”
You got that right. The loudest boos came when Scottie Barnes, a rookie, went the length of the court and past four Celtics defenders who barely even moved, and dropped in an uncontested layup.
Once again, the Celtics let things spiral out of control.
"(We have to) stop it early. Take accountability,” Tatum said, spitting out whatever buzzwords he could find. “For myself, maybe not getting a call and letting that affect the defensive end. It starts with all of us, myself included."
That’s correct. And it’s admirable to say, but Tatum and the Celtics have been saying admirable things for more than a year. When are they going to stop talking and do the admirable things they’re saying?
"Something that you gotta work on. ... I don't claim to be perfect at all. Far from it,” Tatum said. “I make mistakes all the time and I like to be held accountable from my teammates and myself and you guys. So I understand that that's a reoccurring thing that myself and other guys gotta get better at. Easier said than done, I think.
“Certain that anybody will tell you over the course of an NBA game that you care. You're playing hard, you get emotional. You might not mean to do those things but emotions get the best of you sometimes. A lot of people that have played this sport at that level would, I think, second that. But I'm not saying it makes it right. But stuff like that happens. I'll be the first to say that I gotta do better and I'm not perfect."
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Tatum is right. Stuff like this does, indeed, happen. And just because it happened in this game, it doesn’t mean that this is how the whole season will go because he’s also right when he says that you can’t overreact to two losses in October.
“It's only been two games. We're not going to lose a championship or win it after two games,” he said. “If we was 2-0, obviously we'd probably feel a little bit better about ourselves. But we got 80 games left so I think we'll be alright."
It’s too early for talk about things like crossroads and must-wins, but this team does need to understand that it’s also too late to completely blow these kinds of performances off. Yes it’s a new season with a new team and a new coach but that just means that there are only a few people to point to now when the same old problems keep happening.
Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart are the leaders of this team. They’ve been here the longest. And they’re the constants. If everything else has changed and this team is still having similar issues, then it’s only natural to look at the people who have been here and ask them why it’s happening.
That also means it’s up to them to make sure it stops. It’s up to them to snap out of funks and keep the other team’s runs in the single digits, and not something ridiculous like the 24-6 close to the third quarter that triggered the boos in the first place.
“It’s not fun. It’s not fun to play, I’m sure it wasn’t fun to watch for the fans,” Tatum said. “It was tough. ... I’m certain every team has games they wish they could have back on nights like these. It’s all about how you respond.”
Yes. Exactly.
Part of this is on Udoka to hold his players accountable. More of it is on the players to hold themselves accountable.
It’s time for the pillars to start acting like it.