You in all probability felt a little bit like this if you happen to watched the Boston Celtics’ 118-114 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Christmas.
It was a day when Celtics followers skilled nearly each emotion attainable whereas watching their staff battle it out; pleasure, frustration, hope, defeat, and plenty of extra. The sport was actually a rollercoaster.
However, why?
Apart from the truth that basketball is a recreation of runs, the wide selection of feelings will be attributed to the Cs taking part in a few of their very best and absolute worst basketball throughout the identical 48 minutes — or as head coach Joe Mazzulla put it, “inconsistent basketball.”
“We simply didn’t have nice offensive rhythm and we didn’t have nice defensive execution,” stated Mazzulla. “Hear, we’re taking part in inconsistent basketball. So, we now have to be higher at each ends of the ground. We have to be extra constant on each ends of the ground.”
The inconsistency stems previous this one recreation, however to Mazzulla’s level, Boston seemed misplaced offensively to open the fourth quarter.
“That’s a good criticism from him. We’ve to essentially dive into our work a little bit extra and perceive that we will’t chill out during times of the sport,” stated Al Horford, who needs to be exempt from all criticism after his classic efficiency towards Philly.
Abruptly their two-point lead was a 15-point gap and it felt like each shot that they put up was a tricky one, even when it was a makeable shot.
Is it unfathomable to assume that Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, and Jaylen Brown would sink the above pictures?
No, we’ve all seen them do it loads of instances. That doesn’t change that these are robust seems to be, even when it’s widespread for them to drop. Philadelphia did an ideal job of constructing Boston work for every thing to open the ultimate body and it wound up being an enormous distinction on this recreation.
It doesn’t assist that the 76ers have been creating wide-open seems to be on the opposite finish on nearly each possession.
They have been unfastened, whereas the Celtics have been taking part in tense.
“I believe we performed properly the final six minutes of the fourth,” Tatum defined. “I believe simply that begin of the fourth quarter, actually, we struggled on each ends of the ground.”
JT wasn’t mendacity. The ultimate six minutes of this recreation noticed Boston play a few of their finest basketball of the 12 months.
As soon as they have been all-but pronounced lifeless with the third Caleb Martin (30% three-point shooter this 12 months, by the way in which) three of the quarter, Boston primarily sat up of their chair and locked in, particularly on the defensive finish.
The engagement on protection was night time and day from what we’d all watched for the primary half of the quarter. As soon as they locked in, the Cs took away Philly’s open seems to be and turned them into contested mid-range jumpers and turnovers, and hastily the massive deficit was erased.
The true challenge right here is that the engagement is all the time underneath their management. Positive, you’ll be able to’t management if somebody like Caleb Martin hastily is a sharpshooter, however you’ll be able to all the time management your personal focus.
“Yeah, I believe we’ve obtained to take some possession,” Tatum continued. “We’ve obtained to be higher. We’ve obtained to acknowledge the issues that we’ve executed, not that, you realize, not so nice. We obtained to look within the mirror and man up. And we simply obtained to be higher. We absolutely consider in ourselves, you realize, the issues that we will do once we’re absolutely locked in, and we’ve executed it time and time once more.”
Tatum’s proper. The Celtics have earned a mulligan or two from the group. An NBA Championship will try this. On the identical time, they’ve now misplaced three of their final 4 video games, and 4 of their final seven. Boston is 6-5 in December after shedding to the 76ers — inconsistent, if you’ll.
