It’s always something.
The Celtics should be better than this. They should be winning games like this. And each game, there seems to be a little something different that legitimately keeps them from doing so.
On a night where Robert Williams should have been exploiting Charlotte’s soft interior defense and doing chin-ups on the rim, he was home with his newborn son. That's exactly where he should be, for as long as he needs to be.
In a game where the Celtics needed someone to step up and make some kind of defensive play to stop Charlotte’s fourth-quarter run, Marcus Smart was on the bench in street clothes, trying to recover from COVID-19.
From there, it was our usual game of Celtics excuse whack-a-mole.
Actually, let’s make it more fun than that. Let’s make it the Celtics version of Homer Simpson buying Bart a cursed Krusty Doll.
The Celtics shot 14-46 on 3-pointers with their best shooters, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, combining to go 2-18
“That’s bad.”
But the Celtics had 27 assists on 39 baskets!
“That's good!”
The Celtics gave up 11 offensive rebounds leading to 18 second-chance points.
“That's bad.”
But the Celtics had the game down to four even with everything going the way it was with more than eight minutes to play.
“That’s good!”
The Celtics missed some shots they generally make, but there's some question about whether they could have taken better shots to increase their chances of scoring.
…
…
That's bad.
“I think foul trouble hurt us with our aggression a little bit there,” Ime Udoka said after the game. “Guys started playing safe a little bit there. … We had to scramble some lineups with obviously Rob and Marcus being out, but Jayson and Grant being in foul trouble put us in some disadvantageous positions. We had Enes (Freedom) out there when they were smaller, and I think overall just a little bit of mixing and matching lineups and trying to find the right pieces with our guys down.”
This, again, is legitimate. They were missing two starters and then foul trouble sapped the aggressiveness of their best player and key reserve. Take this sentence and apply it to, say, the Milwaukee Bucks and it’s a loss that gets brushed off.
For Celtics fans, though, it’s another game of watching these guys struggle through a winnable game.
“In the past, you feel a certain way about some of these games. This was different,” Al Horford said. “I just think that they had some really timely offensive rebounds, kick-outs, and hit some threes that really got to us. And despite all that, I feel like we were kinda there. I’m not gonna group it with all the other stuff because I was really encouraged with some of the ball movement offensively. It’s definitely tough. I felt like we had a chance coming into this game and those threes that they kept hitting really, really hurt us.”
It’s hard to know anymore where the team is just struggling with normal mid-January stuff and where the same old issues persist. It’s hard to stand on the outside and see something that looks the same but be told it looks different.
It’s like walking into a pizza place that keeps messing with the recipe. Every pizza you get looks about the same, but half the time it tastes horrible and half the time it’s pretty good. The hope is that the chef finally finds the right mix and you finally get good pizza every time.
The Celtics have a lot of the ingredients, but they still can’t quite get it right.
Like attacking the basket, for example, which was so good against a similarly bad New Orleans defense.
When asked about the attacking, Brown said, “we had guys, at times we tried to be overly aggressive and get to the basket anyway, but sometimes that leads to turnovers and even worse basketball.”
But the coach talked about the need to keep doing it and understand what that can accomplish.
“I think (Tatum) relies on the (3-pointer). I mentioned against (Jonas) Valancinunas last game, the first play of the game, taking that contested 3 when he has a seven-footer switched onto him, at times, just being in attack mode,” Udoka said. “I think, with our team in general tonight, (Josh Richardson), it happened a few times, Jaylen it happened a few times, where we're getting downhill and you have to remind them that the crowd is coming, the help is coming, see your outlets.
“I felt we weren't as we had been in previous games with penetrating and kicking when we drew a crowd and that goes for Jayson also. He gets to the basket pretty much at will but he is settling at times and trying to draw fouls. I'm telling him to find your outlets, go in to score and not to get fouled.”
This learning curve is part of the process. Udoka is trying to mold these players but he’s working with rigid metal. It needs time to heat and bend and cool, and then be worked on again. It takes time.
Again, another legitimate reason for some of the things we’re seeing. Some of it morphs into excuses for some of these guys, and the hope is that somehow, by lessons learned or front office maneuvering, those excuses are eliminated.
For now, these frustrating steps back and forth are just part of the deal. Because it’s always something with these guys.
