Giving up 26-0 and 22-0 runs on the road — and even 16-0 at home — is no way to win a playoff series.
With that out of the way, the Celtics got down to business on Monday afternoon by watching film and talking about ways to prevent the extended runs the Washington Wizards have used to build double-digits leads in each of the first four games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, which is now tied 2-2.“Our focus is not on Game Three and Game Four,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said during a conference call following a film session on Monday, “with the exception of learning from Game Three and Game Four what we can do to be better (in Game Five on) Wednesday.”
Providence Journal/Metro West Daily News
Scott Souza with an off-day writeup on, basically, what the Celtics are both good at and bad at. For reasons that are not immediately apparent, Washington has been better at going on runs against Boston than either Cleveland or Golden State, or, really, any other team.
And yeah, I’ll grant you that the Celtics have seemingly outdone themselves from one game to the next in terms of stretches of ugly play over at least six of the last ten games, but they’ve also won six of their last ten games, and this is no different than what we saw in the regular season. C’s still can’t handle prosperity. They still have moments where they look like the D-League affiliate of the Washington Generals, where it doesn’t look like they could win one game, let alone 50+. By now, it’s part of who they are, as much a part of their character as the fact that they did win 50+ games.
Are they going to beat Washington? I’m pretty sure they’ll close them out. Maybe even in six. Will they beat Cleveland? Probably not. Will they at least make it a “series”? Pfft. Who knows? They have a better shot than Indy and Toronto of changing the style of ball Cleveland plays, which might at least make the games interesting.
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