With the exception of about three minutes in the fourth quarter and a couple in the first, the Celtics didn’t just play to the level of their competition tonight, they played below it. They were worse than a team with a placeholder coach trying desperately to keep a top-three protected pick, losing to the Lakers 112-104.
The Celtics appeared to be in full-on ‘count your chickens before they hatch’ mode with this one, dreaming of those projected wins over lesser quality teams without, it seems, realizing that you have to actually play basketball to your potential to turn those projections into wins.
The game started off with both teams looking awful, and about halfway through the first quarter, the C’s went on a 10-0 run, and it looked like things were going to get away from the Lakers, but Boston slipped back into a funk on the offensive end, and although they shot better than LA, they only grabbed a single offensive rebound in the first, and that was something of a circus act by Jerebko. Brandon Bass had more of an impact in the first than Kobe, despite playing half the minutes by virtue of his ability to actually put the ball in the basket. At the end of one, Boston was up 3, 27-24.
Boston, which had been doing a serviceable job defending LA in the first quarter pretty much took first three minutes of the second quarter off. They let D’Angelo Russell, a rookie of questionable ability, do whatever he wanted on three consecutive possessions before Stevens called a timeout and, presumably, told them that he was going to dock half their game checks if they continued to play on only one end of the court. The Celtics came out of the timeout playing better on D, but much worse on offense so that was pretty much a wash. I’m not paltering with the truth when I say that the Celtics made the Lakers look like a competent, if not an above average, basketball team in the first half.
Kobe finally made a tough shot, and then another and Lakers fans who had infested the garden cheered as he gave LA their largest lead up to the point. The fans were cheering louder than they had been for any Celtic or Celtics play before that. It was that kind of a night.
I’m not going to say that the first half was the ugliest basketball I’ve seen this season, but it wasn’t pretty. Not at all. The Celtics let the Lakers come into TD Garden and do whatever they wanted for pretty much the first 24 minutes of the game. There is a ‘look’ to this Celtics team when they’re playing well, a crispness on defense, a precision, that sets up their offense, and that was just not happening in the first half. The Celtics were, frankly, lucky to leave the court down only two (58-56) with the way they played. A better team would’ve taken them to the woodshed in the first half.
The Celtics scrapped their way to a small third quarter lead, and then gave it all up and then some as the Lakers went to town on the Celtics, building a 14 point lead with less than three minutes to go. The period ended with the Lakers holding an eleven point lead. The Garden was full of Lakers fans, and they were, arguably, louder than Boston’s own fans throughout the period, which stands to reason. Boston’s on court product was nothing to cheer about and, in fact, probably merited a bit of vocal opprobrium from the Celtics’ crowd.
At the end of the third, LA, which, I remind you had won only five games of 32 up to this point, was shooting almost 50%.
About five minutes into the fourth, with the Lakers keeping their lead right around twelve points, Evan Turner went on a one-man 6-0 run that the Lakers answered, and then the Celtics went on an 11-2 run, making it a one possession game with under three minutes. But like most fourth quarter pushes, it wasn’t enough. Kobe buried a three that’ll end up in that documentary that he’s producing about himself, and that was pretty much it.
I’m not going to talk about the crowd, except to say this: Clearly, this was a very important game for the five thousand or so Lakers fans in Boston who, it seems, bought all the available tickets and invited up their friends from New York. They made their presence irritatingly felt during the game.
Green
Jae Crowder, kind of. And Marcus Smart, except when he hit that putback and then the floor we all gasped–and not in a good way. Also bits of Evan Turner.
Gross
You name it. Aside from free throw shooting, throw a dart at the box score and you’ll hit a big pile of yecccch.
Greenlights
IT to Jae for the trae: https://t.co/uhqo3AldZr
— KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 31, 2015
ET to KO alley: https://t.co/b80SVd5Zvt — KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 31, 2015
Smart follow: https://t.co/1L4bionxUK — KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 31, 2015
Bradley cleans up after ET: https://t.co/vxXE0yInxy
— KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 31, 2015
Grid
LA shot 47% from three, outrebounded Boston by 7, and well, if you want to inflict further misery on yourself, check out the box score here
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