The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me, And be my love in the rain.
- Robert Frost
This was never going to be easy. Anyone who tried to tell you any different was preaching on blind faith.
The Celtics have lost three straight games for the first time since going down 0-3 to Miami in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals. They have had moments where they have looked like everything they promised to be, but those have only lasted for a quarter or two here or there.
Mostly, they have been frustrating in some way. Makeable shots have mostly missed. Rebounds seemingly within reach have found their way into the opponent’s hands. An official’s piercing whistle stops what had been, to that point, a lot of hard, effective defensive work.
“We're still figuring out a lot of stuff,” Jaylen Brown said after losing to the Pistons. “Obviously, it’s what people don't want to hear, especially in Boston. It's not an excuse, but it takes time. … Unfortunately, all three games, I feel like we're winnable games.”
On one hand, losing winnable games makes people feel like a win could come at any time. On the other, the inability to win games within reach is a reality check that, maybe, they just can’t.
According to Synergy Sports, the Celtics scored 1.48 points per possession on their high-quality shot attempts last season, fifth in the NBA. So far this season, they are scoring 1.178, 24th in the league. They are also averaging 1.5 fewer high-quality possessions over their first three games, which makes their inability to cash in on those situations even worse.
“First and foremost, we need to maximize our potential,” Brown said. “The results will come if we stay with the process. We can’t be results-oriented …
“I just really think the glass -- the glass will solve a lot of our issues.”
Ah, the glass. There's a self-deprecating sponsorship with Windex if the Celtics want it.
“Trouble cleaning the glass, Jaylen Brown? Try Windex!”
We are very much in “laugh so you don’t cry” territory with the Celtics' rebounding issues. Once again, they allowed a team to rebound nearly half their misses, 47.4%, which is a stat so obscene this column might be forced to carry a parental advisory sticker.
This will never be a good rebounding team, but they can’t be this bad.
“There's ones that we have to get,” Joe Mazzula said. “We have to be physical. We have to be tougher. We have to get those. And then we have to do a better job of creating turnovers and getting offensive rebounds to combat that. But the timely ones, we have to fight to try to get those.”
Combatting the defensive rebounding issues is also a problem. The Celtics are currently 18th in the NBA with a 28.9% offensive rebounding percentage. It’s in line with where they were last season (29.1%), but that's not good enough to make up for their issues on the other end.
They're creating four more turnovers per game, 16.7, which is a nice improvement from last year, but they're 27th in the NBA in points off turnovers (14.3), which means they aren’t taking advantage of the mistakes they're causing. Opponents are scoring 17.7 points per game off Boston’s turnovers, even though the Celtics’ 13 per game is best in the league.
In a world of damning early stats, this might be the biggest of them all. The Celtics are a team taking risks to force turnovers, knowing that some of those will result in giving up second chances. Forcing those turnovers is supposed to be a place where they add points. Instead, that's also a negative.
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. The roster is, to put it politely, flawed. The optimism of training camp allowed us to believe their effort and energy would allow them to make up for the deficiencies that has caused. A preseason against the scraps of bad rosters didn’t allow us to see just how much trouble the Celtics were in to start the season. The reality of where the Celtics are has smacked them like the cold sleet of a November nor’easter.
This storm will pass. It’s just a matter of how much damage it causes. Joe Mazzulla has never lost four in a row. That hasn’t happened since 2021. Rajon Rondo and Tyler Zeller started the last time the Celtics lost five straight. It’s very possible this team will reset all of these numbers, and maybe a few more.
Through it all, they are staying positive. It’s early enough that incremental steps are enough to carry them through the tough times. Drake Maye is doing them a favor by diverting a lot of eyeballs until they can figure it out.
“It's a little adversity, but you look at this, it will make us better.” Payton Pritchard said. “Tomorrow we're gonna go to war again, try to pull that one off. Win or lose, come back the next game and go back at it. … It’s Joe's mindset, it’s this organization's mindset, it’s just a growth mindset. Can we continue to chip away at it and get better?”
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.