The Boston Celtics wasted a 30-point lead over the Atlanta Hawks. They had their 10-game winning streak interrupted. They completely lost focus. They put up 44 points in the first quarter and 44 in the second half.
All of this is true. And none of this will matter in two weeks.
What will matter in two weeks is Boston’s clutch offense, which deteriorated into isolation basketball against Atlanta.
With 40 seconds remaining in the game and behind by one point, Jaylen Brown dribbled the ball on the wing. He waited and waited, but the Celtics’ play never appeared. As a result, he attempted a contested three as the shot clock expired. It was a miss.
“I didn’t like the last shot that we got,” Brown admitted. “I suppose we waited too late. I was waiting for the action to develop. But the clock was ticking down, and it was taking too long.”
Brown and Jayson Tatum scored several key mid-range shots down the stretch in one-on-one situations. To their credit, the Celtics attacked the mismatches they desired and found their opportunities.
They had success with some simple screens, but as soon as their initial concept was cancelled, they froze.
When the ball is whizzing about, players are establishing screens away from the play, and the defense is on its toes, the Celtics have an advantage. When the offense is bogged down, the defense is locked in, and players have time to respond to what’s in front of them, Boston frequently forces a negative look out of necessity.
However, the Celtics did not regard offense as their main issue; rather, their defense contributed to offensive troubles.
“I think that they just had time to set their defense,” Tatum went on to say. “They kept scoring.” We did not have as many stops as we did at the start of the game. So, those scenarios occur frequently when you’re playing against a set defense, obviously because they were scoring and we weren’t making as many stops as we would have liked.”
Boston appeared delighted with their late-game offensive execution.
“I think we were pretty decent,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “I thought JT was doing an excellent job collecting buckets for us. I believe we could have been more strategic on defense in a few circumstances. “We gave them easy free throws.”
That is all true.
Boston couldn’t stop Atlanta in the final three minutes of the game. They were unsanitary machines.
The Hawks scored on all five possessions they had down the stretch. They scored in a variety of ways, including free throws and offensive rebounding.
When the Celtics retrieved a rebound after a missed free throw, they capitalized with a Tatum error that led to a Bogdan Bogdanovic three-pointer.
Atlanta had an opportunity to set up their defense in the half-court every time, making life more difficult for the Celtics. However, this is not an excuse for isoball.
Why settle for inaction off the ball? When the Hawks blow up two screens in a row, leaving Brown floundering on the wing, why say, ‘Dang, I suppose we’ll just go ISO now’?”
The solution is to get into the play faster, which Brown admits is a problem, but even so, when the Celtics find favorable matchups, possession nearly invariably ends. They live and die by the mismatch, while everyone else on the court stands and watches as if they have a ticket to the game.
This is how Boston’s offensive operates. Tatum is generally able to get by the defenders and find an open shooter early in the game. But, as the game goes and teams become less willing to abandon their players, Tatum is frequently forced to take difficult mid-range shots.
He and Brown made things happen against the Hawks, save for the most vital offensive possession of the game, but the overall notion is absurd.
Perhaps the Celtics are hiding their cards, storing their lengthy sets for the playoffs. Maybe this is Joe Mazzulla’s method of getting Tatum and Brown some late-game, tough-shot practice before the playoffs. Perhaps they are content to live and die with their stars in the final minutes.
Again, the game didn’t matter, but the questions did.
