The Celtics haven't always been at their best this season, but it hasn’t cost them much. Even on nights when the defense wanes a little (or a lot), the Celtics have found ways to compose themselves, break out of whatever funk they were in, and win the game.
Not Thursday night.
“I thought that was one of the times where lack of shot-making just kind of took a toll on our defense over time,” Joe Mazzulla said after the loss to Chicago. “And they made some tough ones, especially late in the clock … but I thought that got the best of us a little bit.”
For the Celtics, this game was a bit like the Duck Soup mirror gag, staring at what seemed to be a reflection of themselves, but instead looking directly at someone doing what they do just as well. Boston allowed 50 3-pointers to Chicago for the second time this season, a ridiculous number for a Celtics team typically allowing the fourth-fewest 3-point attempts per game. Boston generally holds a math advantage thanks to its 3-point volume disparity, and the Bulls have managed to erase that twice.
“Hat’s off to Chicago,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “They had a good game plan, they played well, they played hard. A few guys they have are playing really, really hard and the game plan worked for them and got the win today.”
It’s not like Chicago buried Boston in 3-pointers. They hit 19 of 52. But some of those makes were very tough while Boston missed 42 generally good looks from deep.
"We shot the ball poorly tonight,” Jayson Tatum said. “In the first half, our defense was still pretty good. I think human nature may have played a part of that. We were just missing some shots, frustrated with that, frustrated with the officials."
The Celtics are just like the rest of us around the holidays. People might not realize that when we say “fall back” to change our clocks, the rest of the phrase is “... into all of your bad habits.” For us normal folks, it means heavy foods, desserts, and an extra bottle of beer or three. For Boston, it’s apparently letting missed shots lead to bad defense and taking their frustrations out on the officials.
Not that the refs didn’t have it coming. There was a lot of poor officiating out there, but if we’re being honest, the Celtics also had their chances to walk away from all of those situations without a tech.
“Obviously the tensions were high,” Porzingis said. “I think the first one, Joe got called for it, I think he stepped on the court too much. … Then JB was talking, everybody’s tempers just got flared up a bit and it wasn’t our best moment right there. We had to maintain our cool because the game was still right there. Just tonight was a tough night for us.”
Jaylen Brown walked into the game with his mind racing over the attempted burglary of his mother’s house while she was home. With the weight of that situation clearly weighing on him, he carried the uncharacteristic performance on the floor to a similarly uncharacteristic aggression in his explanation of the technical foul.
“I got fined a couple weeks ago for inadvertent gestures that were determined not a part of the game, which was fine. I took the fine,” He said. “But what part of the game is the ref calling an inadvertent technical foul? And then I said to him, 'You called a tech for no reason.' He said, 'If you say it to me again, I'm gonna call another tech.' And then he called a tech. Man, get out of here. You can't threaten guys with a technical foul. That's not part of the game either.
“You want to fine people for gestures and all this stuff, fine that. This is some bullshit. We were down three at the time at the jump ball and that led to us being down 8 and that affects the game. That could have been avoided. Joe didn't say anything to deserve a tech. And when I come to you and say you're giving a tech for no reason, as a captain before the game, I come and shake all the refs' hands because I speak for my team. I'm allowed to talk. So when I tell you you called a tech for no reason and you say, 'If you say it again, I'm calling another tech,' then I say it again and you call a tech, you just threatened your whistle as a threat. Like, that's not a part of the game either and it's bullshit.”
The NBA doesn’t take good points into account when it doles out the fines, so I’m sure both Brown and Mazzulla (for his postgame outburst aimed at an official) are about to make another substantial charitable donation. And considering the season, I’ll toss that into the very small pile of positive things to come out of this game.
Sometimes it’s nice to get a reminder of what not to do. The hangover from this one might be enough to swear off the hooch for a while. The Celtics haven't shown this side of themselves in a long time, and the aftermath of it won’t be an enjoyable experience for them, either. But the good news is they get to the Bulls again on Saturday, which is a chance to cleanse the palate a bit.
"It's like a mini playoff series for us, so it's going to be a good challenge for us going there now,” Porzingis said. “They feel good. They beat us here at home. It's always a fun matchup. Us going there and try to steal one from them will be a good challenge for us."