BOSTON — The Celtics didn’t help themselves on offense. As Joe Mazzulla often notes, an offensive meltdown on Monday cost Boston a home game where they entered as 15.5-point favorites over a Hawks team they beat one week ago and now missing Trae Young, among others. Fans recoiled seeing Atlanta’s best player scratched late on Sunday, a surprise. Many foresaw the effort coming from the Celtics.
T.R.A.P. G.A.M.E. pic.twitter.com/1Xvr07pBMs
— BasedCelticsFan (@BasedCelticsFan) November 11, 2024
In an uncharacteristic performance, Boston gave the ball away 20 times, something they only did once last year. Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum fittingly failed to connect on an in-bounds pass that flew by Tatum and out-of-bounds, the Celtics trailing by one point with four seconds remaining — their 20th turnover. Jaylen Brown created one the other way and rushed to the free throw line to toss up a potential game-winner, but the Celtics couldn’t sneak by again.
They lost, 117-116, following lackluster starts in wins over Brooklyn and Milwaukee.
“They played harder and they played more physical than us,” Joe Mazzulla said. “You let a team out-shoot you … like that and you’re not gonna win … we got cross-matched on them a few times, but they got layups and rebounds on everybody. Bigs, smalls, mediums. They just outplayed us at both ends of the floor.”
While the ball control appears fixable in short order, Boston plays again on Wednesday in Brooklyn, and the defensive rebounding was likely a product of Atlanta desperation down Young, the Celtics’ lackluster defensive play inside began through Boston’s first five games and returned in the past two. It’s a problem so far.
Kristaps Porziņģis’ return could solidify the interior defense and allow for bigger lineups in crunch time, but the Celtics won the championship missing Porziņģis for most of the postseason. Neemias Queta has been a revelation in double-big units. Mazzulla blamed the interior defense struggles on individual efforts. Mid-season malaise is underway.
The Hawks finished 19-of-29 (65.5%) inside five feet after the Bucks put up 18-of-24 at the rim. Quin Snyder said before the game that, while missing almost all their guards, they would need to pile up stops, run and play through their bigs. He told everyone what they would do pre-game.
“It’s a little bit like a football team losing three quarterbacks,” Snyder said. “You run the ball.”
While 14 fast Atlanta break points and seven of the Hawks’ offensive rebounds became second chance opportunities, Onyeka Okongwu, Clint Capela and others attacked cross-matches while often lifting Al Horford to the perimeter. Okongwu flew in for what became the game-winner with six seconds left following a Dyson Daniels miss. Keaton Wallace stepped into an easy floater trailing by three with 54 seconds left to set it up. Jalen Johnson grabbed his own miss trailing by four with 1:14 remaining and kicked to Larry Nance Jr. for a three.
“You gotta fight some of those bigs,” Brown said. “They got a lot of seals tonight, Okongwu and Capela did a good job offensive rebounding and sealing some of our switches and made us pay for it. We just gotta fight better. We didn’t fight how we normally do tonight.”
That closing stretch mirrored last week’s crunch time chaos against Golden State, Kevon Looney crashing the boards for two decisive put-backs. Mazzulla called out the way Boston lost 50-50 balls in the loss, excusing some on bad luck while Celtics players couldn’t lay a finger on the other races to loose balls, as Sam Hauser said. Boston’s defensive rebounding percentage fell to 15th after the setback, down from seventh last year. Prior to Tuesday, they ranked ninth. They committed the fewest turnovers in the league in 2024.
Hauser said “the little things” cost BOS vs GSW but C’s are still in a good place. Added it’s crazy that they still have room to grow with how good they’ve been.
Couldn’t lay a finger on why GSW was faster to loose balls. pic.twitter.com/HCEocXWBaK
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) November 8, 2024
The interior defense, a below-the-radar problem, could prove to be a lingering one. Prior to Queta’s emergence, the Celtics allowed 71.6% shooting at the rim, 28th in the league. When he began playing more, they improved to first-place (58.1%) in five straight wins following Boston’s overtime loss at Indiana.
Great stat from @DickLipe…
Celtics opponent FG% within 5 feet of rim
First five games: 71.6% (28th)
Last five games: 58.1% (1st) pic.twitter.com/QFNCECRM38— Drew Carter (@Drewdle25) November 10, 2024
One of them, the first game between the Celtics and Hawks in Atlanta, saw a similar start (5-6 FG) by the Hawks inside compared to what they accomplished on Friday. Queta started that night with Horford out, starting slow and giving way to Xavier Tillman Sr. and Luke Kornet minutes. Atlanta finished 24-of-32 (75%) inside, but Boston won the turnover and offensive rebounding battle that night, and Mazzulla saw the interior play improve.
“You have to be able to do both, that’s the most important thing,” Mazzulla said that night. “We did a better job of that after the first 6-7 minutes of the game. It’s not necessarily taking (threes) away, it’s having an understanding of whose threes we want to take away, but you have to have great individual defense, you gotta have great team defense, you just gotta be connected, you gotta protect the rim.”
It didn’t become a big story. The Celtics got away with a slow start, Tatum, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard shooting Boston out of it. They got away with trailing the Nets for most of Friday, shooting only 26.3% from three and allowing 12 offensive rebounds. On Sunday in Milwaukee, they allowed a second straight 16-2 run to start, something Mazzulla wrote off in part due to the Bucks shooting way better than expected through that stretch. Boston returned to 38% three-point shooting, won the rebounding battle and rode Tatum’s 13-of-15 free throw shooting to a win despite Giannis Antetokounmpo scoring 43 points racing downhill. One of those fouls on Tatum left him questionable with an ankle injury on Tuesday, but the Celtics got away with another win.
Tatum, who shot 5-of-16 and 2-of-9 from three after an 0-for-4 start, admitted his left ankle felt tender in the loss and said he’d play on Wednesday. Brown, who picked Tatum up by scoring 37 points and unloaded a good look at a winner at the buzzer, took accountability for committing six turnovers alongside Tatum’s five. Games like these became blips on the radar in a historic 2024 Celtics season. Only 12 games into their path to repeating, it feels early for a championship hangover.
That’s why their deteriorating ability to defend the paint stands out from the opening stretch. Boston fell to 21st in shooting efficiency allowed within five feet (65.2%) and have allowed the 21st-most attempts per night. That’s a tradeoff they embraced at times last year while trying to take away their opponent’s threes, but they limited them to 60.6% shooting when they went inside. The third-best defensive mark in the league.
They need to hope it’s just an effort, emphasis and Porziņģis absence problem, and not an ability one.
“Defense, setting the tone, physicality, too many layups,” Brown said when asked what needs to improve. “I think we guarded the three-point line well, just physicality, switching, rebounding, stuff like that, night-to-night, that we gotta be great at. Tonight we (weren’t).”
