Clouds on C’s Sunshine
Stevens unhappy with win
Brad Stevens was annoyed long before he left the Garden floor after the Celtics’ 130-120 win over Phoenix last night.
Though many of Stevens’ players were ticked off by Suns coach Earl Watson calling late timeouts and ordering intentional fouls — seemingly all designed to cram as many shots as possible into Devin Booker’s record 70-point performance — the Celtics’ coach was more frustrated with his players.
So what if Booker’s performance — not only the most by a player in Suns history, but also the most ever by an individual against the Celtics — had the building locked in a contradictory mix of cheering fans and disgruntled Celtics.
Stevens was more bothered by a sequence of events that led to an unapologetic Watson saying of his stat-padding strategy, “If people don’t like us while we build, so what, do something about it.”
In that respect, the Celtics barely did enough to win in the eyes of their coach. They led by as many as 26, and allowed that lead to melt to 121-110 with 1:48 left in the game. They too may have been distracted by the sight of Booker shooting for history.
The game turned sloppy and undisciplined. And Stevens returned to a subject he has raised often over the last month. The coach doesn’t believe his Celtics are as good as their 47-26 record.
“I’m surprised at where we are record-wise because we’ve got to play at a higher level for 48 minutes,” said Stevens. “We just don’t do it. We were good for six minutes tonight, at the start.”
The situation became so frustrating for Stevens that, in the midst of Watson’s steady stream of timeouts and intentional fouls, the Celtics coach called a timeout of his own with 1:48 left, and their lead now a little shaky.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking about winning the game, like, guys going nuts, we’re not stopping anybody, they’ve scored 115 points in the last 42 minutes of the game,” he said. “It’s been an ongoing discussion. And again, I’m not going to get caught up in winning a couple of games in a row and all that stuff; I want to get caught up in playing well. We’ve shown ourselves capable of playing well, we have not sustained it throughout a game. And it’s been pretty consistent.”
The Celtics took care of the bare essentials. Isaiah Thomas was the leading scorer yet again with 34 points plus seven assists.
The win maintained their position in the Eastern Conference chase, keeping the Celts a game behind front-running Cleveland, which prevail over the Hornets in Charlotte last night.
But it was a quiet, dissatisfied home locker room that opened to the media following the win.
Booker was spectacular, making 21-of-40 shots from the floor and 24-of-26 at the line on his way to topping Elgin Baylor’s 64 points, which served as the highwater mark against the Celtics since Nov. 8, 1959 in Minneapolis.
Some Celtics, most notably Jae Crowder, who kept up a running line of chatter from the bench with Booker in the fourth quarter, were upset. Some wanted to avoid the issue. Crowder chose not to talk to the media.
“No comment,” said the usually elaborative Gerald Green.
Most of the C’s knew the only finger pointing should have been done in a mirror.
“You can be frustrated when somebody is doing that to you — it’s not one guy, it’s to the team,” said Al Horford. “Probably more aggravated at ourselves — at least I feel that way. I would have felt better if I maybe had done some different things to stop it. But you’ve gotta give him credit — 70 points is 70 points. He got 70. Impressive.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he continued. “I don’t want to take away from anything he did. ... It was impressive.”