This one felt different.
It’s one thing to watch the Celtics try but put their effort in the wrong place and lose like they did against Oklahoma City. I’m never worried about a stretch of games where cold shooting causes a cascading effect that leads to a slump or a small losing streak. I’m not happy about any of that, but I’m also not bothered by it.
What I saw in Toronto, though, is where lines get crossed.
The Celtics barely seemed to care for long stretches of this game. And it wasn’t in the maddening but begrudgingly acceptable way good teams coast for three quarters and then try to win by going hard in the fourth.
No, this was like watching a group of teenagers purposefully getting themselves into a bad situation just to piss off their parents. Watching what the Celtics tried to pass off as basketball was like watching Bobby Flay peeling the cellophane off Kraft singles and trying to pass it off as fondue.
“We played with no spirit, with no personality,” Kristaps Porzingis said after the loss to Toronto. “Just a weak performance from us, honestly.”
Last season, the Celtics approach seemed to be ‘what can we do to win?’ This year, that mentality seems to have shifted to ‘what can we get away with and still win?’ Whether that's fatigue or disinterest, the Celtics seem to have treated December and January with a level of disinterest that is at risk of becoming disdain.
And I do understand the disinterest part. Their short summer after winning a championship quickly ran into the beginning of this season. It’s January 16, and Friday’s game is the literal halfway point of the regular season. But for a team like the Celtics with championship aspirations, halfway doesn’t happen until early February. The regular season ends in three months, but Game 5 of the NBA Finals is exactly five months away.
So yeah, maybe a game like this is boring to them, but if they fall into the trap of hating this part of the regular season, then the work starts to wane, and the real problems start to set in.
“We have to be honest with ourselves, otherwise we'll just keep going like this,” Porzingis said. “Get some wins, get some losses, get some wins, and then we'll develop some bad habits. So, just have to be honest and look at each other, look at ourselves individually, and then go from there.”
We’re far from panic, but we’re past the point of taking it lightly. The Celtics made that choice with how they played in Toronto. They stood around defensively and barely cared to put themselves in any position to stop the Raptors. They spent large swaths of the game watching each other try to make individual plays on offense rather than put in the work to move or cut. The select few times they did, they scored easily, so naturally they rarely followed up with more.
“We’re going through some shit right now,” Jayson Tatum said. “We got to go through it together, as best as we can, stick together, trust in one another like we always have, and just show your true character.”
I know their true character, which is why this game is so disappointing. It’s like watching your kid go from straight-A’s to C’s and D’s. It’s confusing because you know what they're capable of.
That also means now is the time for intervention. We’re still at a point where we can look back at this in March and laugh at our reactions, but that means the Celtics will have to find themselves fairly quickly. They can’t carry on like this for weeks and then think they can magically get back to being themselves without some kind of consequence. They have to understand that the longer they wait to do the right things on the floor again, the harder it will be to do the right things on the floor again.
This loss to the Raptors was the first game where I saw a team in green that truly didn’t seem to give a damn. I know they do, but I just couldn't see it at all outside of a select few players. The Celtics swear they're going to figure it out, and I trust them to do that. But for the first time this season, my trust has been shaken.
Everyone knows this loss was different. Now they have to show us they know how to fix it.
“What gives me confidence? Just just knowing who these guys are,” Porzingis said. “We have high personality, high character people. Nobody’s pointing figures and stuff, but we know we'll get past this. I know it, we know it, but we have to start playing better. We just can't keep cruising and expect to just turn it up towards the end. So, it's in our hands.”