It’s getting tough to tell what’s happening with the Celtics at this point.
When every loss looks the same but there seem to be different reasons for each one, it gets more and more difficult to parse which parts are meaningful and which are excusable.
Going from Portland to Utah on back-to-back nights is tough for any team. It’s a two-hour flight but you lose an hour with the time zone switch. The elevation in Salt Lake City is pretty close to Denver, and that has a real effect on a player (I can speak on that from personal experience).
So I wasn’t surprised to see Boston struggle later in the game after coming out to a hot start. That's pretty standard in the NBA in these situations.
At the same time, the way they struggled is way too familiar. They got up 19 in the second quarter and threw it on autopilot, and promptly got out-scored 48-22 over the next 16 minutes. They gave up a ton of second chances, an Achilles heel of theirs since their first loss of the season when they gave up 10 offensive rebounds to Nikola Vucevic.
It’s like when someone has flu-like symptoms, is it the flu? Is it COVID? Is it Meningitis? Is it something worse?
The Celtics' symptoms are always the same, and it’s getting really hard to tell if this is something or if it’s nothing.
The problem is that we’re down to the final weeks of the season, and the rest of the competition is mostly handling their business while the Celtics play November basketball in March.
They couldn't stop Talen Horton-Tucker. That's a big problem … unless it isn’t because of the back-to-back.
They couldn't stop the Jazz on the boards. That's a big problem … unless it isn’t because Robert Williams could return on Tuesday and he rebounds very well.
Jayson Tatum was weirdly cold and continues to miss a ton of shots in the fourth quarter and the clutch. That's a big problem … unless it isn’t because Boston will get a week off after the regular season and the opening-round series are notoriously spread out so he’ll have a lot of time to recuperate.
Joe Mazzulla is struggling with rotations and clutch playcalling. That's a big problem … unless it’s not because the experience of it now is giving him the lessons he needs to perform in the playoffs.
Jaylen Brown has been Boston’s best player this month but he doesn’t get clutch shots anymore. That's a big problem … unless it isn’t because he has a strong All-NBA case and the Celtics can retain him with a supermax contract.
I can’t sit here and argue with anyone, really, about their feelings of doom and gloom because they might be right. This very well could be unraveling before our eyes. Tatum could be gassed and Mazzulla could be in over his head. The depth we saw as a huge advantage could be too much for the coach to handle, leaving valuable players going long stretches or even entire games without playing. The lack of experience could be causing Mazzulla to lean too hard on the numbers because he lacks a true feel for the game in real-time.
All of that, and more, could be true. And if that's the case, then we’ve all basically been crash test dummies in a car hurtling toward a wall.
Of course, this could simply be a poorly-time hiccup. It could be a gurgling in your stomach at the beginning of a zoom meeting. It really sucks in the moment, and there's a chance this could get really uncomfortable, but there's some relief coming and everything is cool after that.
Tatum can’t be this bad, this often, in the playoffs, right? Mazzulla can figure out the playcalling by then, right? The shortened rotation will solidify roles down the stretch, right?
I have no idea how this is going to go for them. Everything from a stunning first-round exit to a championship is on the table. These guys swear they’ve learned hard lessons from the NBA Finals and know the difficulty of the road to get back, but this month’s performances have shown us little proof that they actually do.
They easily could have been tied with Milwaukee at the top of the East right now, but now they're percentage points behind Philadelphia in third. One night they show us perseverance in a hard-fought win, and the next they show us their worst habits all over again.
It’s hard to figure out who these guys are anymore, and whether they truly have what it takes to grind through four playoff series to raise a banner. We can’t go to the evidence, because the evidence points us in both directions. All we can do is sit back and watch to see which of our equally valid opinions will ultimately be proven right.