For a hot second, it looked like the Celtics came to play. Sure, there were a couple of turnovers mixed into the initial Celtics run, but things were flowing pretty nicely.
And then…
The Celtics mascot might as well be Wile E. Coyote considering how often this team falls off a cliff. And there's always a bit of a cartoonish quality to it all. I half expect Jayson Tatum to turn to the camera and hold up a tiny sign that reads “Yikes!” after a turnover at this point.
The Sixers, meanwhile, responded like a bully made to bleed his own blood. All it took was eight minutes, and the Celtics were sufficiently thrashed.
“This was a tough night,” Tatum said. “I don't think we had any nights like this where, obviously, we've had some nights when we've started slow but most of the time, we give ourselves a chance. … We weren't really able to cut the lead down and give ourselves a chance. Obviously, it started with the first unit, it started with myself. We had way too many turnovers at the beginning of the game and could never really get into that lead.”
It’s true that Boston usually does a whole lot more teasing before letting everyone down. This time around, it was the end of the bench coming in during garbage time to make things a bit interesting, something the regular rotations guys couldn't do at all.
“We just weren’t sharp at both ends of the court. But I look at it as an aberration,” Ime Udoka said. “We’ve been in a lot of close games. We didn’t score or defend at the proper level. Off night, happens in the NBA at times, but have to do a better job of being ready to play against a tough opponent. They were obviously coming off a loss, played a little harder than we did.”
I’ll give the Celtics this: They're right about nights like this happening in the NBA. The Golden State Warriors got absolutely murdered by the Milwaukee Bucks this week and then turnaround and beat the Chicago Bulls by 44 tonight. The Detroit Pistons beat the Bucks recently and tonight beat the Toronto Raptors by 16. Nights like this are going to happen.
The problem for Boston is that some variation of “hey, it happens” ends up happening to them every few games.
“It was a little bit different from the vibe, the feel was different from the Indiana game where we got a little frustrated early, got back to trying to do it on our own a little bit,” Udoka said. “I have to do a better job of keeping us composed in those situations. Some of the things we’ve really liked from the last few games, we have to get back to that.”
The Celtics are always getting back to something this season, which is the admission of inconsistency. They are the masters of misdirection, reverting to their worst very soon after showing their best.
What everyone would like to know is … why?
We can go with Occam’s razor and say the simplest answer is that they're just not good enough. That much is obvious at the moment. They're a game below .500 and out of the playoff picture at the moment.
They're also just four games from a sixth seed, which is the carrot they can keep chasing. They won’t get there, though, until Tatum rounds into form. After a few games where it looked like he might be figuring some things out, Tatum fell flat on his face in Philadelphia.
“I don't think I was being aggressive enough coming off those pick-and-rolls,” Tatum said. “Sometimes, I didn't even look at the basket, trying to create something out of nothing. Sometimes, it don't hurt to be aggressive and that opens things up as well. I think, especially in the beginning of the game, that was what was wrong from my standpoint. I need to be a little more aggressive, was being a little too passive and careless with the ball.”
I mean, give the guy credit for owning up to it. And if we’re being fair, this could all simply be part of the growing pains of rising to the challenge set forth by his coach. Tatum and Jaylen Brown are being asked to become more than just scorers, which is what they’ve been forever.
“It's more the natural habits and tendencies and something they probably done in their sleep their whole life is get buckets at a high level,” Udoka said. “You can have it both ways. Score a little less, get some more assists, have a comfortable win versus sweating it out and make it hard on yourself and that's what we're trying to do is show them. There’s obviously easier ways you can do it. Like I said, they want to learn and grow and are very receptive to all the teaching but are asking for more, they're asking that of themselves as well.”
Tatum’s frustrations are obvious. He spent more time talking to the refs than his teammates in this game, and every mistake seemed to pile up on top of the last. He could never get it going in this game, and neither could the Celtics.
Outwardly, it looks as bad as it has at any point of the season. For us, it’s more of the same. The Celtics, for what it’s worth, see it a bit differently.
“I honestly think there’s going to be games where this happens.” Payton Pritchard said. “This is the NBA. Sometimes people just have good numbers some nights. But I think for us, it's just we have to keep working on just finding that consistency and I think we're close, but with any team especially a young team it takes time. Once we hit that point, we'll break through, but right now it's just about coming to work every day and showing up ready to compete.”
We can only hope they're right.