Sloppy Celts trip, fall
Winning streak ends in Sacramento
SACRAMENTO — For every night when it seems the Celtics can score with any team in the NBA, there comes a time like the one last night, when the make/ miss principle takes a fateful turn.
The Celtics’ seven-game winning streak hit a wall with last night’s 108-92 loss to the Kings, deprived for the night of the suspended DeMarcus Cousins. It marked the first time in 26 games that the Celtics haven’t scored at least 103 points.
But as Brad Stevens pointed out this week, the Kings’ smaller lineups tend to give the Celtics fits, and that point was driven home last night.
The Celtics’ woeful 39.7 percent shooting performance hurt, with rough shooting nights from players like Jae Crowder (0-for6), Jaylen Brown (2-for-5) and Terry Rozier (0-for-5). But just as mortal was an overall run of sloppiness, which took the form of 18 Celtics turnovers that the Kings converted into 17 points.
The C’s were also uncharacteristically subpar from downtown, shooting 31.3 percent (10-for-32) from 3-point range.
Thus wasted, in another return to Sacramento, was Isaiah Thomas’ 36th straight game of 20 or more points, last night with a relatively tame 26.
Ill-timed sloppiness plagued the Celtics in a cold-shooting third quarter that resulted in a 77-71 Kings lead.
Matt Barnes, who had gashed the Celtics with two 3-pointers during a 15-5 Kings run in the third quarter, opened the fourth with another, this time for an 8071 Sacramento lead.
Thomas, just sent into the game for Smart, who had just missed his fourth 3-point attempt (against two makes) immediately drove, drew the foul, and triggered a 7-0 run. A Gerald Green 3-pointer gave the run a little heft and cut the Kings lead to 80-78 with 9:46 left.
But getting over the hump was another matter, especially with Darren Collison hitting Sacramento’s 10th 3-pointer with 8:13 left for an 87-79 lead. Two possessions later, and following a Horford miss and a Celtics turnover, Willie CauleyStein gave Sacramento a peak lead with a layup for the Kings’ first 10-point edge at 79-69.
Turnovers continued to take a huge bite out of the Celtics’ chances, and the Kings took advantage, putting together a slow but damaging 12-0 run that began on Collison’s three and eventually concluded on back-to-back buckets from Cauley-Stein.
The Celtics were done for the night.
The Celtics have defended well recently, though not necessarily in last night’s second quarter, when a pair of mid-quarter runs briefly gave Sacramento the lead, before the Celtics came back to tie the game by halftime, 49-49.
The Celtics opened the third quarter with two turnovers and a miss, and dropped below 40 percent shooting, enabling the Kings to correspond with a 10-4 run for a 59-53 lead.
Smart, though, hit his first of two 3-pointers over the next two minutes — the second during an 8-0 run that also included Johnson’s second bomb of the night for a 64-62 Celtics lead.
But it was about to get worse, with the Celtics not only getting sloppy, but making bad decisions, like losing track of the shot clock,
That’s when the buzzer sounded as Smart was putting the ball on the floor. The mistake came at the end of a 15-5 Sacramento run for a 77-69 lead, and included 3-pointers from Collison and Matt Barnes (two).
Sacramento thus carried a 77-71 lead into the fourth quarter.