Kings snap C’s win streak
Celts look to bounce back today
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Celtics had won 10 straight games, but there had been slippage. That they’d managed to survive their sloppy stretches and prosper spoke well in a sense, but you just knew it couldn’t last.
Sunday afternoon against the Kings, the rent came due.
And to at least one Celts, the payback came as Marcus Smart’s floater in the lane bounced around and lingered on the front of the rim as time expired in the 100-99 loss.
“Yeah, in a sense, it kind of was, I guess, because we started off bad,” said Jaylen Brown after the Kings were able to roll out to a 13-point lead in the opening quarter. “We’ve started off bad the last few games, and that ball was just sitting on the rim and we didn’t deserve it, so it didn’t go in.
“But it’s a long season, it’s a long process, it’s a long journey,” added Brown, who led the C’s with 18 points. “We lost a game. It happens. I mean, we’ve just got to continue to keep moving forward and playing well. It’s not the end of the world. We lost a game. Try to win (tonight).”
Indeed, the Celts have a appointment tonight with the Suns in Phoenix, and they’re aware they’ll have to be better than this against hosts who’ve won five of their last seven.
Here against the Kings, the C’s came within inches of overcoming Buddy Hield’s 35-point explosion. Twice in crunch time, Hield hit jumpers, one a 3-pointer, with Smart sharing his Kings throwback uniform.
After the first, Jayson Tatum hit a turnaround from high in the lane, and Daniel
Theis dunked a Kemba Walker feed after the latter to give the Celts a 99-98 edge. The Kings then turned the ball over, and Walker missed a pull-up. Smart got the rebound with 15 seconds left, but instead of re-setting the offense and making it a free-throw fest with Sacramento needing to foul, he went back up and missed. Smart tried to rip the next rebound out of Richaun Holmes’ hands and was called for a foul.
Holmes hit both with 13.3 on the clock, and the Celtics went without a timeout. Walker’s path was blocked, so he got the ball to Smart, who went to the hoop and found it closed.
Going over the ending sequences, Smart looked back to his first chance and said, “I came up with the offensive rebound, and instead of kicking it back out I lost track of time. I thought I had a quick layup, instead of kicking it out and letting them foul us and controlling the game. And then I got called for the foul. He made two big free throws and got the bounce on one of them to go in.
“And then Kemba made a great play. They stopped him, my man turned around to help and he kicked it. I drove it, just like anybody else would do. The ball felt like it sat on the rim forever.”
Long enough perhaps for the Celtics to ponder the sins that had gotten them into this squeeze.
“I thought it was going in,” said Smart, who suffered through a 2-for-16 afternoon from the floor (1-8 on 3’s). “I think everybody thought it was going in and it just rolled out. It’s one of those games, but that’s not what lost us the game. What lost us the game was the early start for me and everybody else in that starting unit. We allowed those guys to get very, very comfortable, and as we know in this league, especially with great guys like those are over there, when they get comfortable it’s kind of hard to get a stop to get going.”
Said Brad Stevens, “There were a lot of controllables that we missed, but they had to also make some incredible shots. So I think it was a mixture of those two, and we’ll get to work from a film standpoint on those controllables and hopefully be better in those scenarios (tonight). But also credit them. I thought a couple of those shots were awfully well contested and those go in and it makes a big difference.”
It makes a difference, too, that the Celts have been playing with fire lately. They were down 15 points to the Warriors Friday and have had some horrid portions in other games, and maybe the fact they won anyway gave them some sense of security they hadn’t fully earned.
This time, they felt the bite on their collective tush.
“I think so,” said Walker after scoring 15 points but going scoreless in the last quarter after coming in with 6:51 to go (0-1 from the floor, one assist). “Yeah, especially the start. Like I said, those guys started off really strong. But, you know, we managed to come back. Our bench is really doing a great job for us. As starters, we just have to be better, man. We’ve got to set the tone a little better, a little earlier. We can’t wait. We’re out there, we’re waiting, and it definitely came back to bite us (Sunday).”
Brown took it hard. “Yeah, that was tough,” he said. “Obviously I wish I could have that one back. (There were) definitely some plays and some reads that I made mistakes on and stuff like that — and be more mentally sound even when your body is tired, whatever the case may be. Just make the right mental play. Definitely a game I wish I could have back, but, in this league you got another game (tonight), literally, so let it go and focus on the next one.”