Celts can’t handle Jazz
Suffer second bad loss
Enough with those playoff vibes, which dissolved once Toronto left town Friday night. Utah checked in yesterday, intent on reminding the Celtics of just how incomplete they are right now. For the second time in eight days, the Celtics fell in ugly fashion to the Jazz, 9886, last night in Eastern Standard Time. The Celtics clearly expended all of their firepower during their overtime win against the Raptors. Kyrie Irving, one night after his finest Celtics game with 43 points, found himself alone this time with 20 points on 8-for-16 shooting. Jayson Tatum was next on the list with just 10 points. Others, like Jaylen Brown (1-for-9), Marcus Morris (1-for-7) and Terry Rozier (2-for-9) finished more in the spirit of the evening. The Celtics shot 38.5 percent overall and a stinging 15.2 percent (5-for-33) from downtown. Donovan Mitchell, who seems to like playing against the Celtics, scored 28, and after two games against the C’s this season is averaging 24.5 in the series. Utah, on the strength of a Dante Exum 3-pointer, carried a 77-62 lead into the fourth quarter, and forced an early Celtics timeout after Derrick Favors dunked three times in the first three minutes of the quarter, the third for an 83-64 lead. The Celtics didn’t make a dent until Brad Stevens sent out a unit with the foulplagued (five) Irving that otherwise included reserves like Brad Wanamaker, Guer- schon Yabusele, Semi Ojeleye and Daniel Theis. Theis and Ojeleye, the latter with a put-back, cut the Utah lead to 15 points (8368). But Ricky Rubio, fouled attempting a 3-pointer, propped the edge back up with three free throws. Yabusele hit a pair of free throws, and Mitchell sent this group down for good with back-to-back hoops – a mid-range jumper followed by a 3-pointer. Rubio followed from downtown for a 94-70 edge with five minutes left. The Celtics shot 44.2 in the first half — not a great number, and evidence of their inability to overtake Utah, which carried a 50-45 lead into halftime. Irving, with 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting, was the only C’s player with much in the way of offensive flow, with Brown (1-for-6) and Morris (1-for-4) in need of a jump. Instead, the Jazz continued to take the initiative, including when Mitchell sandwiched a pair of 3-pointers around a Tatum drive, the latter good for a 63-51 Jazz lead. About two minutes later, fouled by Irving while attempting a 3-pointer, the Utah guard hit all three free throws for a 68-55 lead. Neither side was able to find a steady rhythm, especially with sub-dominated lineups on the floor, and with two minutes left in the third, Utah held a rather ham-handed 72-59 lead. Hayward’s three-point play with 1:33 left in the third cut the Utah lead to 74-62, but Exum nullified the result with a three for a 77-62 Jazz edge. Utah landed the first punch via a 13-2 first-quarter run for a 15-9 lead. With both sides scoring at a 50 percent clip, the Celtics weren’t much better at denying the other side than during their loss in Utah eight days ago. But thanks to a Marcus Smart three-point play followed by a pair of Morris free throws, the Celtics cut the margin to a point (19-18). That’s as close as they would get for the rest of the quarter, as the Jazz closed out the first with back-toback threes from Mitchell and O’Neale for a 29-20 Utah lead. The Celtics dipped into one of their typical droughts, with Mitchell hitting his next bomb in the midst of a 5-0 run for a 34-22 lead, and the Celtics once again were forced to climb out of a double-digit hole.