After going 4-0 against the Knicks during the regular season with an average margin of victory of 16.3 points per contest, the Celtics built 20-point leads in each of the first two games of their second-round playoff series vs. New York before improbably losing both of them.
“Two games we’re up 20 points somehow end up not with wins is inexcusable,” Celtics wing Jaylen Brown said after Wednesday’s Game 2 loss, per Brian Windhorst of ESPN. “Obviously being down two, it sucks.”
No NBA team had a better regular season record in “clutch” games than Boston’s 24-11 (.686) mark. However, the fourth quarter has been a disaster for the Celtics through two games of the conference semifinals. As Windhorst details, the team missed 14 of its final 15 field goal attempts and was outscored by a 23-6 margin in the final 8:30 on Wednesday. Boston has also made just 4-of-26 (15.4%) three-pointers in fourth quarters through two games.
The Celtics still had a chance to win both games, but didn’t do quite enough, losing in overtime by three points on Monday and by a single point on Wednesday.
“I don’t have the answer honestly, I don’t have the answer,” Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis said. “Just a little bit of execution here and there. There’s a couple missed shots here and there. A couple things go their way and it just adds up and it’s this result.”
Here’s more on the reeling Celtics as they prepare for the series to head to New York:
- Porzingis continues to be plagued by the illness that cost him eight consecutive games in February and March and five additional games during the last few weeks of the regular season. He played just 14 minutes on Wednesday and wasn’t part of the Celtics’ starting or closing lineups. “I don’t know how to call it, but I’m just not feeling my best, not feeling my best at all,” he said after the game, according to Windhorst. “It just kills me inside that it’s happening in this moment. But who cares? Nobody feels sorry for us, sorry for me and we have to keep going.”
- As Matt Ehalt of The New York Post writes, the Celtics had to overextend Al Horford in Porzingis’ absence — the veteran big man played the entire fourth quarter on Wednesday and had trouble handling Karl-Anthony Towns in the post over the course of the night, notes Brian Robb of MassLive. Horford was just 2-of-11 from the floor and the Celtics were a -11 when he was on the court.
- Celtics All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum has struggled mightily with his shot through two games, making only 12-of-41 field goals (29.3%) and 5-of-20 three-pointers (25.0%) while committing eight turnovers, including one on the final possession of Game 2. According to Windhorst, Tatum didn’t speak to the media after Wednesday’s loss because the arena had to be evacuated due to a fire alarm.
- Ahead of Game 2, Celtics guard Jrue Holiday earned another end-of-season honor, receiving the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Trophy as the NBA’s Social Justice Champion for 2024/25. The award recognizes a player who advances Abdul-Jabbar’s mission “to engage, empower and drive equality for individuals and groups who have been historically disadvantaged.” Holiday, who also won the NBA’s Sportsmanship award last week, beat out four other finalists for the Social Justice award, as detailed in a press release from the league.
You guys, I’m RARELY ever the first to post in the comment section.
Now that that’s out of the way, I first must admit I only saw the last 5 or 6 minutes of this game. Secondly, I want to make it clear I am in NO WAY an expert/avid follower of Celtics basketball. The only observation I would like to point out is – during those final few minutes of the 4th quarter – that had to be some of the STALEST/ MOST STAGNANT/MOST AWE-REVOKING offensive basketball I have seen in QUITE SOME TIME, courtesy of primarily Jayson Tatum…along with Jaylen Brown. Move the ball around, you two! Get others involved! What the heck??!! Why the hero ball possession after possession after possession??!! You guys are DEFENDING CHAMPIONS!
This is the problem with the live and die by the 3 philosophy. Sure, you would expect them to hit more of those wide open shots by default, but with a big lead late in a game your only objective should be to manufacture points anyway you can while prioritizing reduced variance over pure efficiency. Continuing to pursue ” the most efficient shot in basketball” at that juncture is the failure of wielding analytics by those who don’t know how to wield them properly.
Yes, the Knicks were clogging the paint and the Celtics couldn’t just stroll into the paint, but the point is they didn’t even try to get there nearly often enough. They didn’t move around the ball with purpose. They didn’t play team basketball and, instead, started to play hero ball. And all the while continuing to chuck up shots they had been missing all game, some open and some not.
On top of that, the head coach refuses to call a timeout during a critical offense drought as the lead slipped away, and again before the final play resulting in Tatum putting the capper on the epic failure. Oh, and Mazzulla’s reasoning was “the play before worked really well, so we wanted to try it again!” Yes, I’m sure Thibs and the Knicks players were going to let that happen.
It was a well deserved loss. Again.
The warriors and Dantoni era rockets have proven you can build around the 3 and still have dynamic offense at the same time. I’d say the problem with the Celtics is that those other two teams heavily emphasized ball movement and off ball movement where the Celtics have not.
Celtics are okay with just standing around and forcing a shot. Not sure if that’s a coach issue or a players listening issue.
None of those teams faced a good defensive team. Ball movement is definitely a key for any good offense. But it’s the old adage in sports. That still applies today and always. Good D stops good O. Good O beats good D. Knicks have stepped big on D. And have stepped up on offense in both games. In the 4th Q. Where it counts most. Only stat that matters in the playoffs is the WWWW…….DoubleU
Well, yeah man, and last year there was no problem with live by the three and die by the three.
It led to a well deserved championship.
Again.
Times moves on. What happens one day doesn’t the next.
It’s a crazy world.
How does that negate any of the specific arguments I made? Being the right general philosophy for winning games isn’t the issue. It’s being so beholden to a strategy that it becomes a situational liability with a big lead where minimizing variance would actually be more conducive to winning.
Imagine for a second the NBA introduced a 4pt shot that was an even lower % shot, but which would replace the three as the most efficient shot in basketball. With a big late game lead, would you want to introduce even larger variance by pursuing this shot ad nauseum? No. What works generally over the course of an entire playoff run doesn’t necessarily work at every single point in each game.
My jaw hit the floor when Mazulla said they just repeated the same play from a minute before because it worked then.
Last postseason, every one of their opponents was compromised by injury. The emperor indeed has no clothes.
This will make seven straight years of the defending champion being bounced in Round 2.
Mazulla is really not a coach. His only game plan is shoot 3’s and let JT and JB do hero ball. Celtics just got lucky last year… Shooting 100 3’s in 2 games combined is just a joke. Two ball hoggers that contribute to 16 turnovers combined in 2 games are really a problem.
Its called Team D ….. makes offense look ugly.
Chosen Dud is exactly right. The Celtics play some of the most boring and individual basketball I have ever seen in my 70 years of watching, playing and coaching basketball.
And Horford didn’t have to play the whole 4th quarter. Kornet and Queta can contribute more than a tired Horford. Mazzulla is not a good coach. He can’t make adjustments. He didn’t have to coach last year because they didn’t play anyone good.
Maybe stop jacking up 3s once up 20. Get higher percentage shots, put other team in foul trouble.
That’s the problem with this Era. They all wanted to be the Warriors that shoot 3’s. Same thing happened to the Cavs, instead of easy 2pts they just shoot up 3’s thinking they are Curry. That’s why some fans said this era sucks. No more easy 2’s, but just shoot 3’s even if your percentage is 25-30%.
Yep, I like a variety of shots. This era is not the most fun if every team is playing that similar style.
Another game adding to the list that proves Tatum is a massive, massive fraud. He’s not even top 25 current players. He can’t win without a stacked roster. Tatum just rides Brown to victory. Tatum is just Kuzma if he was 5% better.
It’s great to see New York up two games. However, we all know they still need 10 more wins. It’s early to get excited. Look at last year against Indiana. Let’s go Knicks!! Time to Bury Boston.
The Knicks aren’t winning anything with KAT on the team either, but I cant wait for the Pacers/Thunder or Pacers/Warriors Finals!!
Knicks will beat the Pacers. Just like GS isn’t even a playoff team without Curry.
Brown is also a problem. Both JT and JB are ball hoggers that contributes 16 turnovers combined in 2 games. Mazulla is also a fraud. His only game plan is just shoot 3’s and let JT and JB do hero ball.
Even at the most egregious, the Curry Warriors NEVER put up 50+ ATT from 3 per game. Boston was lucky to get away with it once, but won’t get away it again.
KPs absence has hurt the Celtics offense. KP opens up the floor for Jason and Tatum. Where they get better looks and easier shots. Knicks during season have not defended KP well. I certainly don’t care if he plays or not. Knicks knew coming in they had to defend KP better. It’s up to Boston to adjust.
Always takes the playoffs for the avg fan to understand what Team D means. In a 2Way sport the game is won on O or D. You do what’s needed to impact game and step up. Thats what Knicks have done in 4th Q. Celtics haven’t faced Mitch all year. You think they know him Now ………. Bridges and OG were brought to NY. To defend Brown and Tatum. They are the class of the East. If you want to contend. You have to go thru Boston ……. Well
J Tatum — (gm1) 7/23, (gm2) 5/19
J Brown — (gm1) 7/20, (gm2) 8/23
Thats what good team D looks like. You can call it missing shots. You can call it not adjusting to Knicks, bad coaching. You can call it bad shot selection.
Bridges, OG and Knicks call it Up 2-0 ……
Porziņģis opens the floor for Jason and Tatum but what about Jaylin (spelt wrong in purpose) and Brown?
Turns out Thibs has been playing 4D chess this whole time.
Regular season: “why are you playing Towns in drop and not switching? Everyone gets wide open 3s!”
Postseason: [stops playing drop, starts switching, breaks Boston’s brains]
That strategy plus well-prepared, well-conditioned players is paying dividends.
Pretty obvious that Celts offense sucks. We all know Brown will fumble the ball away a lot on his drives and then we’ll unsuccessfully try forcing the ball into KP, miss most all layups and under this pressure miss our threes, never finding any rhythm. Guess we can live with these miscues but then in the 4th quarter it gets worse. Just our stars going one-on-one. Hope Coach can somehow get our beloved Celts to play better offense. We have seen passing-games time to time. Go Celtics!
Sadly Mazulla the fake coach doesn’t have another game plan. He will still make the Celtics shoot 40-50 3’s a game. Let the ball hoggers JT and JB do hero ball in the last minutes.
As a NYK fan, I believe BOS can comeback in this series. But they’ll need to match the NYK’s new found (re-discovered really) physicality. The top of BOS’s roster is so talented individually, they often don’t need to play with the grit normally required to win showcase (playoff, etc.) games. Probably for that reason, they don’t play that way very often. Certainly, in last year’s playoffs they didn’t need grit; though in the playoffs in prior years they did need it, and sometimes they responded and sometimes they didn’t, and, at other times, they did, but too late.
I think it would be a mistake for them to modify their 3 pt shooting approach simply because their percentages were unusually low in the first 2 games. Because that would be dumb. But if being a more physical team results in fewer 3’s (and they take so many that it almost certainly will to some extent), that’s not dumb. Of course, they could keep things exactly as they are, wait for the percentages to normalize and perhaps come back and still win the series. But I think that’s unlikely to happen.
I’m a Celtics fan, but sadly because Mazulla is a fake coach… His only game plan is shoot 3’s and let JT and JB do hero ball in the last minutes.
Knicks should prepare against the Pacers now. Both Cavs and the Celtics are Live by the 3, die by the 3…
Lots of times Tatum or Brown bring the ball up court and it never leaves their hands. They just dribble around until they take a shot. I think that succinctly describes the Celtics problems.
They both want to show they are franchise players but none are league top 5 …
Imagine JT and JB contributes 16 turnovers combined in just 2 games…
Mazulla only game plan is shoot 3’s and let JT and JB do hero ball 🏀
Tatum nor Brown are really not clutch players! The offense is terrible but they are all really banged up!
Get the out of the hands of Tatum and into White, Horford.
“ NBA
Kristaps Porzingis tortured with mystery illness as he watches shocking Celtics collapse”
So KP finally comes thru for Knicks …….
Celtics have nine players who contributed great minutes during the season. Now with Hauser out for the rest of the series potentially, they should still have eight playing at least 25 minutes a game. And there is no reason to not play Schierman a few minutes based on what he showed at the end of the season. And let Pritchard touch the ball. He’s proven to be a shooter, but hard to shoot if you don’t touch the ball. Run an offense.
That’s the problem with the fake coach Mazzulla… He doesn’t want to play the bench more in the playoffs. Last year he only played 8-9 players… Giving the starting 5 38-40 minutes.
Yep, I’d sure like to see Pritchard (and White) shoot, backed up by Tatum & Brown, not the other way around. And play Luke more, he’s been terrific! Come on Coach, it’s up to you to adjust. Go Celtics!
Coach Mazzulla’s game plan… Just shoot 3’s!
Mazulla never had a game plan. The Knicks are more hungrier and coached well. If the Celtics lose again, they should fire Mazulla and hire a real coach. Sorry but it’s time to break JT and JB. 2 Ball hoggers will never win another championship…
I think you should post this a few more times because the first seventeen have not been clear enough.