Celtics

The Celtics defense failed repeatedly against the Raptors.

The Celtics struggled in the first half and completely collapsed in the second. They lost a game 110-97 to a Raptors team they had beaten by 50 points in their last meeting.

Here are the snack bars.

This route quickly becomes more than just a rut.

First, Boston’s struggles over the last month could be explained by poor 3-point shooting. After all, the not-so-secret of the modern NBA is that games are often won or lost at the 3-point line.

But you can’t blame the 3-point line for the Celtics’ woes on Wednesday – while they weren’t impressive (16 of 46, 34.8 percent), they were better than the Raptors (11 of 34, 32.4). ). Percent).

Perhaps you could say that the Celtics’ strange December schedule killed their momentum, but every team has scheduling quirks, and the Celtics got through the toughest part of their schedule relatively unscathed, finishing 3rd on their recent road trip to the West :1 ended.

No, at this point the blame for the Celtics’ woes can be spread across the entire roster, and Wednesday’s game was just the latest – though perhaps the clearest – example of a team for which the most optimistic possibility is that they don’t make it. It’s not particularly important to me at the moment.

The Celtics defense failed repeatedly against the Raptors, who ended their pursuit of the much-needed Cooper Flagg with the win. At one point in the second half, the Raptors were shooting an incredible 77 percent from the field, and while they shot 50.6 percent overall, that total included a cold streak at the end of the fourth quarter that gave the Celtics’ sputtering offense every opportunity to get back on track game to come.

The defensive struggles killed any momentum. In a stretch that felt oddly pivotal with 7:41 left, the Celtics finally got a little offense going when Jrue Holiday ran a pick-and-roll with Kristaps Porzingis, who unleashed an easy lob slam, but on the other Page completely outplayed Jaylen Brown They lost early in the shot clock on a guard-to-guard pick-and-roll, and Jamal Shead sank a three-pointer that increased the lead to 14. At that point, the Celtics had plenty of time to rally from a 14-point deficit, but in the previous 40 minutes they had put forward few reasons to believe they would get there.

The offense, which so often flows from defense, was similarly lackluster and uninspired. Payton Pritchard was the team’s leading scorer with 20 points, but he was far from innocent – he launched several three-pointers with the Raptors logo, including one immediately after Shead’s three-pointer, even though he was out of the rhythm that warrants those types of Recordings for weeks.

Jaylen Brown shot 4 of 14 and had some game-winning offensive possessions that didn’t do the Celtics any favors. Brown has made so much progress in his game over the last 12 months (and the last seven years, really), but seeing him revert to some of his worst habits was far from encouraging.

Jayson Tatum started the season as a pretty legitimate MVP candidate, but has had far too many poor shooting performances like Wednesday’s to be at the top of the rankings at this time, according to a tough look.

It’s not entirely clear what’s going on with Derrick White, but the Celtics need much more than a 2-for-9 shooting night (1-for-7 from three) in which he was -29 in just 21:15 from one player who was a serious contender for an All-Star slot a month ago.

“He just has to keep playing, keep playing, keep believing in himself,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters afterward. “I believe in him. We love him.”

You could blame the offensive plan, which led to Brian Scalabrine making a case for a player at the dunker position on the NBC Sports Boston broadcast.

You could blame the free throws – the Celtics were 9 of 18 at the line, which didn’t quite make the difference in the loss, but could have changed the mood of the game enough in the fourth quarter to make a significant difference for a team that is clearly struggling with its general mood.

You probably can’t blame Kristaps Porzingis — one of the Celtics’ few bright spots on offense, going 7-for-11 from the field and 4-for-5 from three — but given the on/off stats, it’s fair to raise an eyebrow pull up Show that in the 454 minutes he has played so far this season, the Celtics perform 11.6 points per 100 possessions worse when he is on or off the field is (a number that will decrease after Wednesday). -17 performance). Not all blame can be placed on Porzingis — he isn’t responsible for his teammates’ three-point shooting woes, and the overall starting woes are one of the most confusing elements of the season so far. Still, the numbers are what they are, and they are not friendly at the moment.

“It’s one of those nights,” NBC Sports Boston play-by-play broadcaster Drew Carter mused as another jumper fell off the rim in the fourth quarter, but the truth is that the Celtics have had a lot of “these Evenings” – far more than can be reasonably explained by a simple shooting range. The Celtics are fighting in a way that seems unfamiliar to anyone who watched them conquer their demons and march to a title last year, but at the same time feels familiar to anyone who watched them develop those demons .

“I think you just have to enjoy the challenge of overcoming it,” Mazzulla said. “I mean, I think this is a great test of what the NBA season offers. So we just have to find the joy in it. The most important thing is to stick together, push hard and figure out the details, the effort and the execution. But you can’t expect things to always work out the way you want. We just have to find out. We have to work through it.”

“​​We’re going through some issues right now,” Tatum added. “It’s tough, but we said after the game that we have to get through it together, stick together as best we can.”

The non-Tatum minutes were bad.

As mentioned, Tatum wasn’t particularly impressive on Wednesday – he grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out seven assists, but he was 5-of-15 from the floor and 3-of-9 from three assists. The overall field goals are particularly concerning because 1) Tatum should take more shots and 2) Tatum probably should take more shots.

But perhaps more concerning for the Celtics is how the minutes without Tatum have been going lately. On Wednesday, Tatum was -1 in a game the Celtics lost by 13. All other starters recorded a double-digit plus/minus.

The Raptors took a 15-5 lead before the Celtics actually put together some good basketball performance – they ended the first quarter with a 24-10 run and took a 29-25 lead in the second quarter, which The procedure apparently restored order.

However, Tatum doesn’t play much in the second quarter, and while the Celtics broke even in the 5:35 minutes he played, they lost the quarter by six and trailed at halftime.

The Raptors defeated the Celtics in two key areas.

How do the Celtics lose to a tank team when they shoot from three and no player on that tank team gets particularly hot from the field? On the one hand, they lost the points in the game 60:40. On the other hand, they were also outscored 18:5 in transition. The Celtics aren’t one of the faster teams in the NBA (they’re 24th after Wednesday’s action), but they weren’t in much of a hurry at all against the Raptors.

“We played with no spirit and no personality,” Porzingis said. “Honestly, just a poor performance from us.”

The Raptors ended a long losing streak.

The Celtics had not lost to the Raptors since March 28, 2022. In other words, the Celtics’ loss on Wednesday – Joe Mazzula’s first against the Raptors since he took over the team – came more than 1,000 days after the last one.

Three games in four nights (four times).

The Celtics have just begun a bizarre portion of their schedule that, if you look at the schedule properly, includes four different stretches of three games in four nights.

The first highlight was Wednesday’s loss, as there are games against the Magic and Hawks on Friday and Saturday.

The second begins with the Magic game, as the Warriors will be in town on Monday – in other words, the Magic-Hawks-Warriors stretch creates a second.

The Warriors game is the start of a third game as the Celtics travel to Los Angeles on the 22nd and 23rd (as things stand) to play the Clippers and Warriors.

Then the Clippers are the start of a final 3-in-4 tournament that culminates on January 25th with a Finals rematch against the Mavericks.