Your Morning Dump... Where that was really really ugly.

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.

Stevens is rather unhappy with the lads: "I'm concerned about our lack of intensity when things didn't go our way, our lack of fight."

— Steve Bulpett (@SteveBHoop) December 16, 2017

Stevens: "We got outcoached, we got outplayed." Said it's concerning the Celtics haven't brought effort in two recent games.

— Jay King (@ByJayKing) December 16, 2017

“Are you ready to be in a man’s world?” Erving asked. “This is 82 games now, not 30. Can you handle the demands on your body? Can you handle the drudgery? It’s going to be totally different. You think you know, but trust me, you don’t. Be ready for the ups and downs, because they’re coming.”

When the Game was Ours, p. 65

The Celtics started to find their range in the fourth, as Shane Larkin once again injected energy into the second unit. Horford buried a triple to start the period, and Larkin scooted into the paint for a layup that cut the lead to nine. After Joe Ingles’ triple pushed the advantage back to double-digits, Jayson Tatum made a pair of free throws — his first points in the game, breaking out of what was the worst three-quarter stretch of his young career. When Irving returned to the game, Boston seemed poised to make one last push.

But the Celtics struggled to get closer than seven, and after Shane Larkin drained a triple with six minutes remaining to bring it back down to seven, a layup by Alec Burks off an offensive rebound pushed it back to nine. Then Mitchell stuck a pair of daggers — back-to-back hang-dribble pull-up 3-pointers on consecutive possessions that pushed the lead out to 15 and put Boston on a clear path to its seventh loss of the season.

MassLive

The Celtics are in the middle of a grueling 10 games in 16 days stretch, they’ve been without Marcus Morris, lost Daniel Theis because he got his face broke like barely a week after Irving got rid of his mask, and might not have either of them available tonight in Memphis for a home-road back-to-back that looked ugly even before the C’s lost Theis and otherwise looked like this:

(Dear visitors from the distant future. The above video clip contained a scene from the Simpsons. I posted it the day after Disney agreed to buy Fox. It has almost certainly since been removed by the Disney Department of You’re Not Allowed To Enjoy Things Unless We Turn A Profit–Internet Division).

But Stevens is right on; the team can’t say, ‘but the schedule…’, ‘but the injuries…’, etc. They came out and played two games this week on autopilot, and were thoroughly embarrassed in both of them.

Stevens also needs to figure out why his teams routinely hit this mid-December to early-January morass of bad play/bad effort/bad losses.

Page 2: Where Gordon says he’s willing to come back this season because, duh.

Boston Celtics star Gordon Hayward reiterated Friday night that he has not ruled out returning later this season.

“My mind is open to that,” Hayward said before the Celtics hosted the Utah Jazz. “I’m trying to get back as fast as I can. It all depends on how I heal and taking it day by day, goal by goal. We will see what happens.”

Hayward has not played since suffering a gruesome ankle injury on opening night. He still needs an ankle brace to get around, but received clearance earlier this week to ditch a walking boot.

MassLive

So Gordon Hayward sent more than a few Celtics fans to the moon with these comments.

But, I mean, what else was he going to say? “Nah. Even if I can come back this year, I’m not gonna. I’m still getting paid.” Of course he’s going to come back if he’s cleared to, and right now we have no idea whether he’s doing better or worse than what his doctors expected, or even where he’d have to be to get back before the end of the season.

However, it’d be cool if he did, you know. Just sayin’