We all have bad days. I certainly do. Plenty of them. And the last thing I want to do after I’m done with one is sit in front of a bunch of people who really don’t fully understand what it takes to do my job and answer questions about why I didn’t do my job as well as they thought I should.
I mean, I sort of do that on Twitter sometimes, or in the comments section. I get the luxury of some snarkiness and, sometimes, flat out combativeness that pro athletes don’t.
I also get to mute people. Lucky me.
And so when Jayson Tatum wraps up whatever postgame routine he has and trudges to some room to go through this same old song and dance, I wouldn’t blame him for wondering what BS is waiting for him this time, or venting on the team bus about the questions he got.
Because I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to commit that offensive foul at a critical time. I know he wanted those 3’s that he took to fall. And I’m 100% positive that no matter how much Tweeting, gif-making, or column-writing that I do, he knows I, a 48-year-old who never sniffed his level of basketball, probably don’t know half of what he does about the sport.
But I do know about bad days.
I also know a bit about human nature and I’m pretty well-versed when it comes to bad habits. I know more about making mistakes than I care to admit, and I’m pretty sure I can spot them when they happen.
The Celtics made a lot of mistakes against the Clippers.
“It's a long season. Some days are better than others. I think that's just life,” Tatum said after the loss. “I'm sure you guys have better work days than some other days. Whatever factors into that, this is our job and every day isn't perfect so I'm sure people have different jobs that could probably relate to that. Some days are just like, 'Ah' and some days you feel better about yourself.”
This is a 100% factual statement from Tatum. I think if we remove the context of this quote and just take it at face value, we can universally agree that this is true.
The problem for the Celtics, and why Tatum and the rest of his teammates always seem to field the same few questions after every loss, is that the mistakes are often the same.
Everyone makes mistakes. The first few can be excused, but after a while, there has to be some question of whether someone making the same mistake over and over is actually able to correct it.
The Celtics made mistakes with their switching defense earlier this season and, slowly, they started to figure things out. Their defense has generally been pretty good since then, and that storyline went away.
Tatum has made mistakes as he grows into more of a playmaker, but over time, there have been obvious signs of quicker decisions and more pinpoint connections. He’s growing as a player, and so the mistakes he makes along that path are understandable.
So, too, are some of the more aggressive turnovers the Celtics may commit. Marcus Smart threw a lob to Jayson Tatum that went too high and off his hands for a turnover. It came in a critical fourth quarter stretch where the Celtics were getting stops but unable to convert good offensive chances. That sucked, but the second the ball touched Smart’s hand I knew the play called for an alley oop, and Smart just threw it too high and hard. He shouldn’t have, but I’m not going to kill him over a play like that. It happens.
But losses like this are way too common. The Celtics pattern of tough, avoidable losses, responding to adversity with a good stretch, convincing people things might start turning around, and then suffering tough, avoidable losses has become par for the course.
I tried to ask a follow up to Tatum’s question but I’m not sure he got the gist of what I was talking about, which actually makes a bit of sense to me.
To him and the team, there is no real pattern here. This is more of a frustrating tendency than the fabric of the team’s being. To them, these are bad days that they have from time to time which are admittedly disappointing but something that can be figured out.
To some of us on the outside, though, it feels more problematic than that. This feels like just part of the team’s personality, and without some kind of intervention, this type of thing will keep happening.
Right now, both sides have a convincing argument, but the future of this team hinges on the players’ side being right. The way this team is constructed depends on this being fixable. Future employment both on and off the court is directly tied to the notion that these are, in fact, bad days that can be smoothed out over time.
There is plenty of evidence of on-court progress this season. It’s in the numbers both available to me and those proprietary metrics used by the team. It’s in the eye test ... well, at least on most nights. They are a better basketball team today than they were a month ago.
There is also evidence that this team’s DNA lacks something important. There is evidence that these aren’t just bad days or bad habits, but simply part of the inherent personality of this team.
Walk past the Boston Public Library at pretty much any time of the day and you’ll see skateboarders trying to master different tricks. No one gets a heelflip down on the first try, or even the second, third, or fourth.
Eventually, though, through toughness and perseverance, they get it. No matter how many times they fall, they keep building on each little success and master it. The question for the Celtics is whether they can find that type of thing in themselves, or if this is just who they are.
Dennis Schröder is a skateboarder. He knows. Get lazy on that thing and you can end up in a cast. It’s no different than what we saw against the Lakers and Clippers ... and who knows how many other similar losses.
Here's the question for the Celtics: Who are you guys? Deep down. Honestly.
Who are you?
Forget the turnovers and coverages and out of bounds plays. Forget all the X's and O's.
Figure out the real answer to that question first. That's the only way to figure out the rest.