C’s not as good as they think
Listing towards mediocrity
NEW YORK — A game past their season’s midpoint, the Celtics are very much what their 25-17 record says they are: better than average, but not nearly the every night terror they were thought to be prior to the moment when they actually had to get on the court and, you know, play basketball.
Though close to Golden State in a combined standing, the most evident thing the two have in common is that now each has had a game where its best player has expressed dismay that he didn’t get the ball for the last play of a fourth quarter. And while Kyrie Irving’s demonstrative pleading for an answer from inbounding passer Gordon Hayward in the seconds after Saturday’s 105-103 loss in Orlando didn’t rise to the level of the Kevin Durant-Draymond Green November conflict that spilled into the Warriors’ dressing room, the two situations are linked by profound frustration.
The Celts are now 0-2 on this trip with the finale in Brooklyn tonight. And all this on the heels of their four-game win streak.
At some point, the C’s need to get off the roller coaster.
“Yeah, you get to a point where you have great games, good games,” Marcus Smart told the Herald as he slumped against a wall that led out of the visitors’ dressing room, in Orlando. “And then you turn around and have a game like this, and, you know, it’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s monotonous and real, real, real repetitive right now, and something’s got to change to stop that. We’ve got to get better as a team. We’ve got to close out games better. We can’t let guys play like All-Stars and beat us on their own.
“That’s how it’s been for us all year. I don’t know what to tell you. We’re going to keep getting our butts kicked and keep getting beat if we don’t change it. That’s all I can say.”
The close proximity of highs and lows is wearing on the Celts.
“Obviously, man, we’ve got to get it together,” said Marcus Morris. “You know, we show a lot of signs of greatness, and then we take a step back. It’s still a long season. Forty games left. If we keep chipping at it, keep getting better, you know, the best is yet to come, I think.
“I mean, man we up and down. But we’re still staying positive and I still think we’ll turn it around and start getting better.”
Hayward offered a verbal shrug.
“It’s definitely a little frustrating,” he said. “Puzzling is a good word. I think we’re trying to figure it out. We have stretches where we’re really, really good and really tough. And then we have other stretches where we’re not at all. We’ve got to be able to be consistent. I’ve got to be able to be consistent. Especially on the road. We haven’t been nearly as good on the road.”
While a complete commitment to defense is a large part of the issue, the offense has had some odd struggles, as well.
“Well, it has been really good as of late,” Hayward said. “I mean, I think the last couple of games it’s not been as great. But it’s definitely improved from the beginning of the year. For whatever reason, this road trip hasn’t been kind to us.”
Even Brad Stevens, one not usually given to distress over particular results during the long season, used the D-word, “disappointing,” twice in one answer regarding his club’s squandering a 12-point third quarter lead against the Magic. His players feel it, too.
“No question,” said Al Horford. “I felt like we were in a good position there, I think we had them on the ropes. I’m honestly not really sure what was the cause of that. I have to go back and look at it on film.
“The one thing that I can say is that we have to be able to maintain that high intensity throughout the game. I kind of sound like a broken record but that’s what I see — not consistent enough playing hard. And winning is tough. And you have to do those right things every time.
“It’s definitely disappointing but we have an opportunity there to go against Brooklyn and finish this road trip on a good note before we get back home. I feel like we came in with good focus here to this game tonight and we have to carry that to that next game, but we just have to be more consistent, all together, as a group.”
Because right now, this group of talented individuals is listing toward those in the mediocre half of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. And that’s most definitely not what the Celtics think they are.