C’s run out of time vs. Mavs
Doncic nets 36 as Celtics lose again
With 5.4 seconds left, and the Celtics trailing Dallas by three points, Marcus Smart intentionally missed a free throw.
He lined the ball off the backboard like a slap shot, and when it didn’t hit the rim, the ball automatically went back to the Mavericks. So much for getting the rebound, or salvaging another too-late comeback.
They came back late after trailing by as many as 23 points, and what followed was painfully familiar. They ran out of time in their second loss of the season to Dallas, 113-108.
It remains to be seen if this team is going anywhere but down by virtue of its junk-bond defensive status. With Rob Williams a late scratch due to a nonCOVID-related illness, the floor turned into an open gym for Luka Doncic and his teammates.
The Dallas star ignited for a 36-point performance that included 7-for-11 3-point shooting to sink the Celtics. But beyond the near-impossible nature of Doncic’s shot-making, a familiar issue — the inability to match an opponent’s energy and intensity until it was too late — came to bear once again.
Brad Stevens, asked about benching players in the wake of these performances, didn’t shy away from the notion.
“It’s a really fair question,” said the Celtics coach. “I didn’t think we started awful. I thought we did some good things early. We did miss some shots, but we were flying around. We were playing the right way. But when adversity hits, we nose dive. And so we’ve got to be better in that situation.
“So it’s not to me as much about the start, the end, it’s about how are we going to play when it gets tough,” said Stevens. “Because it’s always going to get tough, the players are too good. Like, those shots that Luka hit were ridiculous. I mean, there’s nothing else we can say about those, right? So we have to move on. We have to be able to do that better than we have. And I do believe that we can. But I’m not gonna sit up here and talk about what we can do and what we hope to do and all that crap. I mean, I’ve been around good teams, and I’ve been around bad teams and we’re very average right now. Because we don’t do it every day. And so we’ll see how good we can get if we start to do it every night.”
Smart pointed to “not getting rewarded,” both for playing physical defense and attacking the basket down the other end.
“We have a lot of skillful guys on this team, so for us to be in the position we’re in is even more frustrating, because we don’t have an answer,” he said. “We come out and we watch our film, we go out there and this is how we play, this is what we want to do, we go out there and execute it and the outcome is still the same for us. It’s tough. I keep saying it, but it is tough for us. It’s just one of those years right now where adversity is a lot for us, and we’ve just got to keep going. We can’t give up. I think that’s really the key. I think we’re gonna turn it around. I don’t know when. But we’re still right there, enough time to get to where we want to go, and hopefully catch a rhythm.”
First, though, according to Jaylen Brown and Smart, aggressiveness has to reenter the picture.
“I mean, it’s a little bit of everything. Combination of pride. Combination of a really good player who got hot,” said Brown. “It’s a combination of, you know, a lack of aggression. Like you said, a little bit complacent. We gotta be more aggressive. It’s a combination of a lot of those things. I think Luka definitely came out and hit some really, really tough shots that were defended pretty damn good. But he is one of two, we gotta do something different. That’s a combination of everything.”
Including, still, a lack of resolve.
“I think that’s a good question,” said Brown. “I don’t even know how to answer it to be honest. I think that’s a great question, though. It’s just ... it’s just something that needs to be done, whatever it is. I don’t know how to answer.”