This one for the birds
Pelicans gobble up shorthanded Celts
NEW ORLEANS — You could say the Celtics’ injuries caught up with them last night, but that would be failing to give them credit for the awful defense they played after the first quarter. Or the disconcerted offense.
Ninety-two points were enough to win in Orlando, but things are considerably more difficult for opponents here in the Big Easy. So Anthony Davis went for 34 points and the Celts went for their third loss in the last four games, dropping a 10889 decision to the Pelicans.
The C’s looked lost without Kyrie Irving and Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart (and Daniel Theis and Gordon Hayward), but they didn’t do themselves any favors.
They were not buying the excuse.
“(Expletive) that,” said Marcus Morris after scoring just three of his 17 points in the second half. “All that ‘guys out’ and all that, we still should win some of these games regardless. When it got a little bit tough, we sped up and we got out of sorts.
“(Expletive) no. We should be able to play. I take a lot on myself not being able to score when we needed it. I think we’ve got to execute better, defend better, everything.”
The game couldn’t have begun much better for the Celts, but it didn’t last. They scored the first eight points and jumped on the Pelicans at the other end of the floor, holding them to 38.1 percent shooting and coming within Davis’ 10-point quarter of putting some serious distance between themselves and their hosts.
As it was, the C’s led, 2820, after one and appeared to be moving the ball well enough to get the open shots they would need to compensate for the scoring that was on their inactive list.
But New Orleans shot 54.1 percent over the final three quarters, with the C’s miscommunicating themselves into front-row seats as their foes blistered them for 40 of their 54 points in the paint.
“I thought we were hanging on by a thread at halftime,” said coach Brad Stevens of the point when the Celts’ lead was a mere 4947. “For whatever reason, I thought we looked a step slow. But obviously we’re going to have moments where we struggle to score with this group right now, and we just have to play a more concerted game, a more intentional game than we did. We missed some shots, but we also rushed some shots.
“I thought we were really good out of the gate. I thought we really started well in a lot of ways. … I felt like we were ready to play. We started the game off well. (But) there were some times where we probably let go of the rope in the second half, and it kind of cascaded on us.”
The cascade became an avalanche after the fourth quarter began in embarrassing fashion.
Abdel Nader was fouled while attempting a 3-pointer, and Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry, fined $15,000 earlier in the day for criticizing the officiating the previous night, argued the call and picked up a technical foul.
Nader took and missed the tech free throw. Then he missed three more.
Semi Ojeleye made a trey to get the C’s within five, but then the Pelicans delivered a 17-2 body blow that ended it.
“I know obviously I’m capable of making those shots,” Nader said. “I think after I missed the first one, I just got a little tense and stressed out, and it led to more misses.
“But I won’t happen again. I guarantee you that.”
And it is for certain, too, that Nader’s misses are not what made the Celtics look lost and disjointed.
Jayson Tatum led with 23 points, but the C’s shot 36.4 percent in the second half while the Pelicans hit 56.4 percent.
“I felt like we started the game playing well,” said Al Horford after his six points on 3-for-11 shooting. “I just think that defensively we had too many breakdowns, and the game just kind of got away from us in the second half. There’s no excuses.”
He said of Davis, “He got behind our defense a lot. You’ve got to give him credit. He dominated (last night), and I’ll definitely take the blame for that.
“I didn’t really give us a chance, missing a lot of looks offensively. I just need to be better.”
But this defeat was very much a team thing. Greg Monroe was minus-25, Morris and Shane Larkin minus-19 and Terry Rozier minus-16. In other words, a systemic failure.
“We missed a lot of opportunities,” said Rozier. “We didn’t play hard enough on the defensive end. A lot of games, our shot’s not going to fall, but you’ve still got to show effort, and we didn’t show that.”