Celtics just don’t have their heart in it at home

We should be used to this now. This season Celtics has an eerie ability to make life harder for oneself than it probably should be.

Once again, they returned from a successful road trip sluggish and deficient, slurked with the ball, one step slowly on defense, ignoring scout reports and giving opposing players the opportunity to get to their favorite spots and then act surprised when they are not frightened when They make adjustments.

Celtics is a miserable homemade. They are 16-10 in Boston and a league-best 20-6 on the road. No other NBA team has more than 17 roads. For some reason, Celtics blooms on the road when expectations are lower.

Nevertheless, after Thursday’s 127-120 shellacking of the short-haired Mavericks, it is only so close because of a late run of the reserves-Celtics is left to wonder why they cannot get traction, especially in the comforts of the home.

The problem is a lack of focus. Celtics lost this game in the first quarter and committed seven revenue. Four of these revenue were Jayson Tatum twice losing the ball without being pressed, and Jaylen Brown was stripped on consecutive belongings late in the period.

It’s so easy to detect when Celtics lacks focus because they don’t try to hide their refusal to concentrate. They facilitate the game, allowing opponents to get speed offensively.

This time it was Klay Thompson who has been bumpy in his first season away from the Golden State, but it should not come as a shock that he is still capable of a heater. After spicing up a few triangles and scoring 10 points during the opening period, he hit four medium-sized jumpers in the first 1:45 of the second period for a 40-25 lead.

With Anthony Davis and PJ Washington out, Thompson had green light and utilized full advantage. And when the Celtics defense was adjusted by catching Thompson, his teammates reacted with buckets against a defense that looked off -tzzed against ball movement.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla can’t explain why his team has been so crazy inconsistent. He rejected his team playing a complete game on Tuesday at Cleveland for the victory.

“The victory can hide some of these things,” theorized Mazzulla. “At the end of the day, this is more the process of what we want to do. We had stretches of really bad basketball at the end of the first half against Cleveland, but we were able to work through it. To me, the result doesn’t matter as much as the process. I didn’t think we were playing a complete game in Cleveland and I didn’t think we were playing one tonight. ”

The difference was the result. Celtics won in Cleveland. They picked up a game at Cavaliers. They beat one of the league’s best teams on their home floor, no matter what the process looked like. The bottom line was the victory.

On Thursday, Celtics of double digits benched the entire other half until Mazzulla finally benched starters and used the games on the second and third device to trigger a demonstration. Kyrie Irving made a 3-pointer in front of the Celtics bench to expand the lead to 114-90 with 9:37 back, and Mazzulla decided he had seen enough from his starters and it says something.

Mazzulla usually pushes its Frontline players to the border to get the winner. This time he saw when his reserves played harder and with more gravel. He looked at the TD Garden audience, which lived the home layer in the third quarter, rose on his feet because it appreciated the effort and the desire, something that was not always there with starters.

Mazzulla can philosophize about the “process” and that it is more effective than winning, but winning feels much better than losing. And Celtics has done a lot to lose at home to teams they had to beat. Thursday was another example of playing down to a short -horse opponent, enabling role players to become stars and then pouting when the game doesn’t come easily.

There are some nights where Mazzulla has no idea how his team should work. Maybe they are bored with the so -called “process”. Maybe they look forward to the playoffs and have some concern about playoff poding.

But seeing this team constantly fighting with prosperity must be exhausting to fans. Seeing them being ghased by “Enter Name of Role Players here” must be confusing, especially since Celtics is proud of the defense.

“We have not been as strong as we need defensively,” Brown said. “Part of it is on me as our captain. No one makes any excuses. We weren’t as good as we had to be in the evening defensively. We played a little slowly. We must continue to push through the break. We just need to be better at closing (all-star) break and reassessment to start the second half of the season. ”

When asked how the team can avoid these slow starts and subparies at home, Brown said: “You must be prepared. We had to get our guys prepared to be ready to go from the jump. The first half set us in a hard place, let them get to a big lead was hard to get back. We must be better. We had to be more physical, more aggressive. It was a tough defensive evening. We do not make any excuses. We must be better. ”

The question is, how do they avoid these clunkers? No one in the dressing room seems to have any idea and there are only 30 games left in the regular season. Celtics must find answers before than later.

Gary Washburn is a Globe Paltist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Gwashburnglobe.