You knew it had to end sometime for the Celtics. You just hoped it wouldn’t be one of those games.
Two days after a statement win against the Warriors where they were almost perfect, the Celtics did, well pretty much everything wrong blowing a 22 point 4th quarter lead in a 105-104 loss to the Cavaliers in Cleveland.
Despite not playing their best brand of basketball the Celtics were still comfortably ahead against a shorthanded Cavaliers squad playing without Donovan Mitchell, Max Strus and the entire second half without Evan Mobley, who sprained his ankle in the second quarter and did not return.
But then, it happened. That thing that past versions of this Celtics team would sometimes do with a big lead.
They just stopped playing.
The offense slowed to a crawl. Boston went 8-26 and 0-for-8 from deep in the final frame. Cleveland meantime caught fire thanks in large part to a once in a lifetime performance from Dean Wade.
Who? Yeah, exactly.
Wade, who said “the rim looked like a swimming pool,” did not miss in the quarter going 7-fo-7 from the field and 5-for-5 from behind the arc. Two of his 20 4th quarter points came on an offensive put back slam with 19 seconds to go giving the Cavs a one point lead.
Which still gave the Celtics the ball and a chance to go ahead on the game’s final possession. As they’ve done so many times before Boston put the ball in Jayson Tatum’s hands. And, as Tatum has regrettably done too often in these situations, he held it. For way too long. His final shot clanged off the back iron with .7 seconds to play.
“Down one in that situation, you try to get a couple more possessions and we just have to get into it faster and go faster and try to extend the game,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters.
For a moment it looked like the Celtics might get bailed out by a whistle, but replay clearly showed no contact on a foul called on Darius Garland. The call was overturned and the game was over.
“It was unfortunate, I thought I got fouled but they didn’t think I got fouled and it’s tough because we got, we would have had the tip in,” Tatum said. “Just a weird way to end the game, but they always say the game isn’t won or lost on the last play. There’s a lot of things that we didn’t do well in that fourth quarter that put us in that position.”
He is right. The game was not lost on the last play. The Celtics didn’t execute well all game. This wasn’t a meltdown as much as it was the bill coming due. Boston made careless turnovers (13) poor reads and left Cavaliers shooters open throughout the night but somehow managed to maintain a comfortable lead for the first 40 minutes. That’s how it goes sometimes when you have as much talent as do the Celtics.
But is all came crashing down in the 4th quarter.
“Everybody’s going to have their own perspective on it,” Brown said via the Boston Globe’s Adam Himmeslbach. “Mine is that that’s what happens when you don’t match the gas and take little things for granted throughout the game and let a team stick around.”
While the outcome of the game isn’t ideal the Celtics remain 48-13, 7.5 games up on Milwaukee for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. In short, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, a loss like this serves as a reality check. Good as the Celtics may be, you relax, start to coast and fail to respect the game, this is what can happen.
“I think it’s healthy for us,” Porzingis said via the Boston Globe. “We do have a feeling that we’re like, we’re going to win every game, we’re invincible. We’re going to win this game. No matter what happens, we’re like, ‘We got this.’ A little bit of that feeling is always there, which may be healthy, but it’s also healthy to get a loss here and there to recalibrate a little bit and have that attention to detail again … I think it’s completely fine and I think it’s necessary for us to keep building.”
“This is good,” Mazzulla added. “Regardless of whether you win or lose, you take a look at it and a lot of good situational stuff from us, whether it was end of quarters, beginning of quarters, Wade had a great offensive rebound where if we get that it’s a different game, so it’s just small things that give us an opportunity to really work on execution.”
But there are those who believe losses like these could be a harbinger of what’s to come if the issues are not addressed. Losing a regular season game on a Tuesday night in Cleveland doesn’t seem like something that could derail an entire season of dominating play. But any carry over or relapses in the playoffs when the games do count, and a performance like this could cost you a game or even a series and end your season.
“Today matters,” Brown said. “Whether everybody wants to throw it away or not, we’ve got to look at the film and address some stuff, because that matters.”
