Another Night, Another Horrifically Embarrassing Loss For Celtics
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON(CBS) -- Things are just getting worse for the Boston Celtics.
They were embarrassed again Tuesday night in Toronto, blown out by the Raptors to the tune of 118-95. And really, it wasn't even that close after the Celtics essentially gave up midway through he third quarter.
Making matters even more frustrating is that the C's always gave some of their best effort against the top teams in the East heading into Tuesday night's clash with the two-seeded Raptors. That was not the case for most of the game. After playing well in the first quarter and taking a 32-30 edge into to the second frame, they bowed down over the next 36 minutes. Brad Stevens' crew was pathetic in the second quarter, and before they knew it, were facing a 31-point hole in the second half.
Add this debacle to the ever-growing list of tremendously horrific defeats this season. Just when you think the Celtics have suffered their worst loss of the year, they lower the bar even more. Saturday night in Chicago was bad, but seeing an absolutely lifeless team just roll over in Toronto was worse (blowing a 28-point lead at home to the Clippers should still be considered the worst loss of the year). Tuesday night even featured a rare potty-mouth moment from Stevens, he spewed an F-bomb from the bench just ahead of halftime.
Who is to blame? Everyone who was on the court and the Boston bench. The Raptors are a good team, but there is no excuse for how the Celtics played -- and more importantly, looked -- over the final three frames. The avalanche of horribleness starting with Toronto outscoring Boston 36-13 in the second quarter. The Celtics went nearly five minutes without scoring a basket as the Raptors ripped off an 18-0 run. Stevens didn't call a timeout until it was a 13-0 run, and by then, it was too late. The C's committed seven turnovers in the frame, leading to nine Toronto points.
The Celtics started the second half with a 7-2 run to cut it to a 16-point game, but the Raptors easily laughed that off. The Celtics were done caring or trying by the midway point of the third, scoring just six points in the final 5:31 of the frame. They were down 28 points when the fourth quarter started, and that 12 minutes of basketball couldn't end soon enough for everyone on the Boston roster.
The Celtics have been downright hideous on defense lately, ranking 25th in defensive rating over the last three weeks. The Raptors took full advantage of their disjointed play, either crushing them from beyond the arc (hitting 17 of their 36 bids from downtown) or driving for easy layups.
If you need any proof that the Celtics had no desire to play defense in the second half, well here you go:
That's Pascal Siakam picking up a bad pass from Marcus Morris and going coast-to-coast, untouched, for an easy layup. Gordon Hayward caught up to the forward, but both he and Kyrie Irving decided the other would defend the drive. Neither ended up defending the drive, and Siakam put in two of his game-high 25 points.
That about sums up the Celtics D after the first quarter. Stevens called out the team for their defensive failures following the loss.
"This is real. The reality is that we're taking a lot of shortcuts and not being as solid as we have been in the past in the last two games," he said. "I thought we were really good against Milwaukee. So, it's not like we don't know what we need to do, but for whatever reason, we've taken too many shortcuts. You can't do that against any team. Certainly tonight, they exposed us and played great.
"We have to be more connected as a team," Stevens added. "It's been a theme for a while."
Asked how the team could address those shortcuts, Irving didn't offer much of a solution.
"I don't know. It's up to Brad," said Boston's lone All-Star.
Irving had one of his worst games in a Celtics uniform on Tuesday, scoring just seven points on 3-for-10 shooting. Even he didn't have much to say after the defeat.
But defensive bulldog Marcus Smart, who was a minus-25 in his 24 minutes on the floor, is clearly flustered with the team's defensive deficiencies. That being said, he isn't surprised with how the team has played as of late.
"Right now, it doesn't surprise me because that's just how things are going for us," he said. "It surprises me in the fact that that's not who we are, but at this moment, it doesn't. We've just gotta fix it. Like I said, it's going to be fixed. It can and will be fixed. It's just not going at the pace we expected it to."
Smart added that he doesn't believe the team is playing as a harmonious unit, which has been an ongoing issue since the season tipped off in October.
"What are the main ingredients to those collapses? Not being together," Smart said. "And that's it. We're just not together. Plain and simple. That's it. Because if we were together, that wouldn't happen. We're all talking and linking up, but like I said, it's something we're going through, and it's something we're going to have to continue to work at and figure it out."
The Celtics keep saying their issues will get resolved in the near future, or that they're not worried because they can essentially flip a switch when the playoffs arrive. Both of those statements are looking less and less likely by the day.
With 21 games to go, the Celtics are firmly entrenched as the Eastern Conference's five-seed. They are two games behind the 76ers for the four-seed, and three games behind the Victor Oladipo-less Pacers for the three-seed. Maybe they can overtake one of those teams over the next six weeks and at least guarantee themselves one home series in the playoffs. But the Raptors would be waiting in the second round, and as we saw Tuesday night, this current crop is nowhere near Toronto's level at the moment.
Maybe the best news for the Celtics is they get to play again Wednesday night, hosting the Portland Trail Blazers at TD Garden. That is, unless Wednesday becomes another entry in the "Worst Loss" competition.
