C’s start slow, lose again
Kyrie’s big half wasted
Based on the looks — all those open 3s — Brad Stevens liked what he saw.
“Tonight was the first time we were really moving it,” Stevens said after the Celtics’ 93-90 loss last night to Orlando. “We were touching the paint, the ball was flying around, we were really working to get good shots. And so, that’s the good part. I think that inevitably it tells you kind of where we are, that that’s our best offensive game thus far, as far as execution-wise. But that’s the reality of it, and we have to improve.”
Based on how many shots fell, and the fact the C’s failed to reach 41 percent from the floor for the fourth straight game, Stevens’ sense of progress was theoretical.
Asked if he agreed with Stevens seeing progress, Al Horford paused before saying, “Uh, no. I had to think about it for a second. There were some good looks, and I’m definitely not happy about those not falling. We did get some good looks, they just weren’t falling.”
But two nights after Stevens said they looked tired in victory in New York, the Celtics started slowly again.
And this time there was no helping them, against one of the youngest teams in the NBA. But two nights after losing by a point in Philadelphia, Orlando found the proper speed in the Garden.
The Celtics lost despite a 17-point second half from the slow-starting Kyrie Irving. The Celtics guard finished with 22 points, eight rebounds and five assists on 10-for-19 shooting.
Others are still searching for a flow. Jaylen Brown, who is barely shooting bet- ter overall (34.1 percent) than he is from 3-point range (33.3), was 2-for-9 with five points last night.
“It’s been a rough start for a few of us,” Irving said when asked about Brown. “It’s like I say, I try to think of the season as kind of sequential, when I say we just want to make it through October. I’m just trying to get through October, start a new season off where obviously the excitement is now dwindling.
“Now we can finally just start playing basketball where the game becomes fun, which is a lot of thoughts that you could come into the season and what you expect to do, and then you come into the realization of where you are and that hurts sometimes,” he said. “You just have to play better, take a few hits on the chin and weather the storm.”
And yet the game was within reach with one possession left. Horford’s layup, followed by an Irving floater, cut the Orlando lead to 91-90 with 14.2 seconds left.
Marcus Smart fouled Evan Fournier, a good free throw shooter, at the 7.8 second mark following a scramble, and the swingman hit twice for a 93-90 lead.
Irving missed a heavily guarded bomb from the corner, Horford rebounded and kicked the ball out to an open Gordon Hayward, and the C’s forward also missed his 3-point attempt.
“It was a good look,” said Hayward, one of the few Celtics with a good shooting night with 11 points, including 3-for-5 3-point sniping. “Kind of like was the story of the night. We had a bunch of good looks. Just didn’t knock them down.”.