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Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
Too much else had gone wrong for the C’s during the first 47 minutes against the Timberwolves for a single minute’s worth of big shots to make a difference. As a result, the Celtics fell back into a third-place tie with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference.
Smart’s full-court sprint — made necessary because the Celtics had run out of timeouts — wasn’t necessarily the shot the team wanted.
“We could have drove it to the rack since we were down two and tried to win it in overtime,” said Celtics guard Evan Turner. “Einstein could have been like, Isaiah (Thomas) was open, you know what I’m saying? Smart had a great game the whole game. A centimeter further, you guys would have been saying he’s the greatest thing walking.
“That’s not what got us there,” Turner continued. “It was a lot of other things. And our competitive nature got us back in order to talk about the last play. But there’s a lot of things that occurred prior to that. So that last play obviously wasn’t the end-all, be-all.”
First off, you can thank me for the furious finish because I frustratingly turned off my TV with about 3 minutes remaining and headed for bed. It wasn’t until I sneaked a peek at my Twitter feed after saying my Our Fathers that I realized I missed a doozy.
Marcus Smart should have passed the ball to Isaiah Thomas. There was enough time and Thomas was WIDE open. It was a decision that cost the Celtics a chance to steal this game. Sure, the Cs were torched in the paint and on the boards. Sure, their defense was pathetic. But after all that, they still had a chance to win. That’s the beauty of sports. One or two plays can eclipse the impact of the previous 100.
Defer to the miscues over the first 47 minutes of that game all you want, but Smart messed up. He deserves blame. Not a scorching, just plain old blame.
PS – When did Evan Turner become such a quote machine?
On Page 2, it appears the Cs left their defense on vacation.
No, the Celtics finished with a defensive rating — points allowed per 100 possessions — of 120.9. How bad is that? It’s 20.8 points worse than Boston’s season average and 11.9 points worse than the Los Angeles Lakers‘ league-worst mark for the season.
Maybe this will hammer it home even more: Boston ranked second in the league in defensive rating on Feb. 9 at 99.2. Just 13 days later — and Boston had eight of those days off for the All-Star break — the team has slipped to fifth in the league at 100.1.
When Stevens was asked Sunday if the defense had slipped a little, he responded, “I think it’s more than a little. I just think we have to be much better into the ball. Listen, we’re small, and that’s something we have to make up for with presence and impacting the ball.
“If we’re going to be a good basketball team, we have to defend; we’ve talked about that. And we have to defend with more presence.”
Yikes. Anytime your defense is mentioned in the same breath as the Lakers, you know it’s bad.
Eight days off will kill any team’s momentum. Boston must tread lightly as it won’t take much to slide down the standings:
After dropping out of the third seed — by percentage points to the Miami Heat after a dismal 124-122 loss to Minnesota — the Celtics’ grasp is precarious. They trail second seed Toronto by 5½ games and are just 2½ ahead of Charlotte and Chicago, which are tied for the final two seeds, meaning the final 24 games will all be meaningful if the Celtics hope to host a playoff round or even make the postseason.
Fortunately, 14 of the final 24 are at home.
The rest of the links
Herald – Celtics at a big disadvantage | Plans go afoul on Stevens D | CSNNE – Cs stage another comeback but can’t finish | Globe – Cs humbled in loss to lowly Wolves | Mass Live – Smart’s miss turns into late game lesson | Bradley gets signed KG jersey
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