Kristaps Porzingis says Celtics had “no spirit, no personality” after brutal loss to Raptors

BOSTON – The Boston Celtics have been in a slump for nearly a month now, and Kristaps Porzingis isn’t happy with the team’s efforts in the midst of their struggles. The Celtics big man gave a brutally honest assessment of the team Wednesday night after a brutal road loss to the Raptors in Toronto.

Wednesday night’s 110-97 loss was a new low for the Celtics this season. All were healthy and in line for Boston, and the team was rested after having two nights off when they narrowly escaped with a home win over the 10-win Pelicans on Sunday.

But the Celtics were a no-show for much of the contest, losing to a team that will be in contention for the top overall pick in a few months. Boston started slowly north of the border, falling behind 15-5 before briefly righting the ship, but then collapsed in the second half for the second straight game.

The Celtics narrowly survived their collapse Sunday night against the Pelicans. They weren’t so lucky on Wednesday, letting the 10-win Raptors completely take over the game out of the break.

Toronto shot a whopping 73 percent in the third quarter to turn a two-point halftime lead into a six-point edge heading into the fourth. In the final frame, the Celtics mustered just 15 points to allow Toronto to pull away for an easy victory over the defending champions.

After the game, Porzingis spoke about the team’s recent stretch.

“I thought we had no spirit, no personality today as a team,” Porzingis said. “It’s strange to say. We have people of high character, but things don’t go our way. We’re a step slow here, there. Just no spirit, no personality.”

Porzingis had every right to speak up as he was one of the lone bright spots for Boston from the loss, hitting seven of his 11 shots — including 4-of-5 from three-point land — for 18 points on the night. Payton Pritchard added 20 off the bench as he continues his sixth-man push, but the rest of the team was an absolute mess offensively.

Jayson Tatum flirted with a triple-double with 16 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, but it took a lot of shots for him to reach the meager point total. He was just 5-of-15 from the floor and didn’t hit a shot in the fourth quarter. Jaylen Brown was a terrible 4-of-16 and scored just 10 points on the night.

A 9-of-31 night from your two stars isn’t going to lead to many wins. Brown was just 1-of-7 in the fourth quarter. To make matters worse, Derrick White was just 2-of-9 on the night (and 1-of-7 from deep) and is hitting just 36 percent of his shots in six games since the calendar flipped to 2025.

This came against a team the Celtics beat by 54 points just a few weeks ago. But Boston’s game Wednesday was a microcosm of what has plagued the team over the past month.

Celtics in a slump

Consistency has been Boston’s biggest problem lately. The Celtics are just 7-7 over their last 14 games, with four of those losses coming at home. They lost just four games at the TD Garden all of last season.

The Celtics have shot just 45.6 percent overall (23rd in the NBA) and 34.2 percent from downtown (25th) since Dec. 19.

This is the first real heat that Porzingis has experienced with the Celtics. He said it’s up to them to snap this funk, but they can’t just expect better results. Porzingis said the belief that these problems will just fix themselves will lead to the team developing bad habits.

“I think we just have to individually look at ourselves like, where can we improve? What do we need to do better? Are we fit? Do we have it? Are we feeling good? Are we locked in mentally? And then try to fix some of the things we have going on,” he said.

“But it’s not the end of the world,” Porzingis added. “Every team has ups and downs, it’s just that it feels like s— right now and we played some bad basketball.”

Celtics confident they can turn things around

While Porzingis is frustrated with how the team is playing lately, it’s clear he’s not hitting the panic button just yet. He is confident that the group will turn things around because he knows what the team is made of.

“We have high personality, high character people. Nobody’s pointing fingers and stuff like that. We know we’ll get past this,” he said. “I know, we know. But we’ve got to start playing better. We can’t keep crossing and expect to just turn it up towards the end. It’s in our hands.”

Getting through this slump together was a theme for the Celtics after Wednesday’s loss.

“We’re going through some s— right now,” Tatum said. “It’s tough but we said after the game we have to go through it together and stick together as best we can. Trust each other like we always have and just show your true character

“You can’t expect things to always be easy, and you can’t have enough of an expectation that it’s always going to go your way, because it’s not,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “We just have to make sure we find a way to enjoy the challenge, but make sure we do it together.”

Despite the tough situation, the Celtics are still 28-12 on the season and sit in second place in the Eastern Conference. But they are 6.5 games behind the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers, and the third-place New York Knicks are now just two games back of Boston. The Celtics know they better get back on track soon.

They will look to right the ship with back-to-back home games against the Orlando Magic (23-19) and Atlanta Hawks (21-19) on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Boston will then hit the road for a tough four-game swing against the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks.