Celtics’ streak continues with loss to Raptors: Takeaways

Celtics

The Celtics’ defense broke down repeatedly against the Raptors.

The Celtics struggled in the first half and completely fell apart in the second, losing a game 110-97 against a Raptors team they beat by 50 the last time they met.

Here are the takeaways.

This stretch is quickly becoming more than a rut.

At first, Boston’s struggles over the last month could be explained by poor 3-point shooting. After all, it’s no secret in the modern NBA that games are often won or lost on the 3-point line.

But you can’t blame the 3-point line for the Celtics’ game on Wednesday — while they weren’t impressive (16-for-46, 34.8 percent), they were better than the Raptors (11-for-34, 32.4 ). percentage).

Perhaps you could say the Celtics’ odd December schedule killed their momentum, but every team has schedule quirks, and the Celtics made it through the toughest part of their schedule relatively unscathed, going 3-1 on their most recent road trip out west.

No, at this point the blame for the Celtics’ struggles can be sprinkled all over the roster, and Wednesday’s game was just the latest—albeit perhaps the most pronounced—example of a team for whom the most optimistic option is that they do not too worried right now.

The Celtics’ defense broke down repeatedly against the Raptors, who hurt their pursuit of a much-needed Cooper Flagg with the win. At one point in the second half, the Raptors shot a staggering 77 percent from the field, and while they finished 50.6 percent overall, that total includes a cold streak late in the fourth quarter that offered the Celtics’ sputtering offense every opportunity to come back in the game.

The defensive struggles killed any semblance of momentum. In a stretch that felt oddly decisive with 7:41 left, the Celtics finally mustered a little offense when Jrue Holiday ran a pick-and-roll with Kristaps Porzingis that generated an easy lob slam, but on the other end Jaylen Brown completely lost on a guard-to-guard pick-and-roll early in the shot clock, and Jamal Shead buried a 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 14. At that point, the Plenty of time for the Celtics to come back from a 14-point deficit, but they had in the previous 40 minutes produced precious reasons to believe they would pull it off.

The attack, which so often flows out of the defence, was similarly lackluster and uninspired. Payton Pritchard was the team’s leading scorer with 20 points, but he was far from flawless — he launched several 3-pointers from the Raptors logo, including one immediately after Shead’s 3-pointer, though he’s been out of the rhythm that warrants those. types of shots for weeks.

Jaylen Brown shot 4-for-14 and took a few flow-killing offensive possessions that didn’t do the Celtics any favors. Brown has shown so much progress in his game over the past 12 months (and indeed over the past seven years), but seeing him revert to some of his worst habits has been less than encouraging.

Jayson Tatum started the season as a pretty legitimate MVP candidate, but has put together far too many poor shooting performances like Wednesday’s to be high on anyone’s ladder right now, and failing to take a shot in the fourth quarter like he did against the Raptors is a tough look.

It’s not entirely clear what’s going on with Derrick White, but the Celtics need a lot more than a 2-for-9 shooting night (1-for-7 from three), where he was -29 in just 21:15 from a player who was a serious contender for an All-Star slot a month ago.

You can blame the offensive scheme, which had Brian Scalabrine pleading for a player in the dunker’s spot on the NBC Sports Boston broadcast.

You can blame the free throws — the Celtics were 9-for-18 at the line, which doesn’t quite make up the difference in the loss, but could have changed the tone of the game in the fourth quarter enough to make a significant difference for a team that clearly looks to struggle with his general mood.

You probably can’t blame Kristaps Porzingis — one of the Celtics’ few bright spots offensively, going 7-for-11 from the field and 4-for-5 from three — but you can reasonably raise an eyebrow at on/off statistics showing The Celtics are scoring 11.6 points per game. 100 possessions worse when he’s on the floor vs. off in the 454 minutes he’s played so far this season (a number that will drop after Wednesday’s -17 performance). Not all of that blame can be laid at Porzingis’ feet—he’s not responsible for his teammates’ 3-point shooting struggles, and the starters’ struggles as a whole are one of the most confusing elements of the season so far. Still, the numbers are what they are, and they’re not kind at the moment.

“It’s one of those nights,” NBC Sports Boston play-by-play broadcaster Drew Carter thought as another jumper clinked off the rim in the fourth quarter, but the truth is the Celtics have had plenty of “those nights” for recently – far more than can reasonably be explained by a simple bullet trace. The Celtics are struggling in ways that feel unfamiliar to anyone who watched them overcome their demons and march toward a title last year, yet familiar to anyone who watched them develop those demons in the first place.

The non-Tatum minutes were bad.

As mentioned earlier, Tatum wasn’t particularly impressive on Wednesday – he pulled down 10 rebounds and dished out seven assists, but he was 5-for-15 from the floor and 3-for-9 from three. The overall field goals are of particular concern as 1) Tatum should make more shots and 2) Tatum should probably take more shots.

But perhaps more concerning for the Celtics is how the minutes without Tatum have gone recently. On Wednesday, Tatum was -1 in a game the Celtics lost by 13. Every other starter had a double-digit plus/minus.

The Raptors raced out to a 15-5 lead before the Celtics actually put together some good basketball — they ended the first quarter on a 24-10 run, and took a 29-25 lead into the second that looked to recover some order to the matter.

However, Tatum doesn’t play much in the second quarter, and while the Celtics broke even in the 5:35 he played, they lost the quarter by six and trailed at halftime.

The Raptors crushed the Celtics in two key areas.

How do the Celtics lose to a tanking team when they outscore them from three and when no player on that tanking team gets particularly hot from the court? Partly they lost the points in the paint 60-40. For another, they were also outscored in transition 18-5. The Celtics are not one of the NBA’s pacier teams (they are 24 after Wednesday’s action), but they were in no rush at all against the Raptors.

The Raptors had a long losing streak.

The Celtics hadn’t lost to the Raptors since March 28, 2022. In other words, the Celtics’ loss on Wednesday — which was Joe Mazzulla’s first to the Raptors since taking over the team — came more than 1,000 days after the last. .

Three games in four nights (four times).

The Celtics are just beginning a bizarre stretch of their schedule that features four different three-game sweeps in four nights if you look at the schedule the right way.

The first tipped off with Wednesday’s loss, as games against the Magic and Hawks on Friday and Saturday loom.

The second starts with the Magic game, as the Warriors will be in town on Monday – in other words, the Magic-Hawks-Warriors stretch creates a second.

The Warriors game is the start of a third, as the Celtics travel to Los Angeles (as things stand right now) for games against the Clippers and Warriors on the 22nd and 23rd.

Then the Clippers start a final 3-in-4, which culminates in a finals rematch against the Mavericks on January 25.