Boston Celtics choke away a game they had won against Atlanta Hawks
Can the Boston Celtics bounce back after their heart-wrenching overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks? With star players like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown failing to come through when it mattered most, the Celtics’ performance raises a lot of questions.
John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down the Celtics’ late-game mistakes, focusing on crucial moments involving Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. He also examines Jaylen Brown’s concerning performance and the team’s shift away from their successful, unselfish playstyle. Despite the defeat, Payton Pritchard’s standout performance offers a glimmer of hope for the Celtics’ future.
Tune in to hear an in-depth analysis of the Celtics’ challenges and potential paths to success. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insider insights into the team’s dynamics.
2:00 recap begins
4:06 Celtics’ late-game execution failures
9:49 Fourth quarter collapse and star struggles
18:35 Missing key players and rebounding issues
22:43 Trust issues and need for unselfish play
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Locked On Celtics is a daily Boston Celtics podcast by Boston Sports Journal beat writer John Karalis. It’s an inside look at the C’s from a former professional basketball player who is at practices & games.
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35 Comments
BONE HEAD PLAYS !!!!!!
The 3s aren’t falling as of late? I know, lets jack up 52 of them. Is 29% good? Well, when compared to team shooting 48% from two, just maybe, just maybe change the mix of shot selection. This team is losing because it is predictable and too dumb, too stubborn, or some combination of those and does not adjust away from what is not working. Coaching and player discipline is an issue.
The obviously choked it away in the last seconds, but they choked away a whole lead through the fourth quarter. It looked like they just wanted to get out of there as soon as they could.
I keep harboring back on how the Celtics let go of Lonnie Walker and it's looking more like they really could have used his services. It's becoming more obvious that outside of Pritchard, our bench is a major problem. When the Celtics starters are off the floor, the bench gets completely outplayed and Tatum normally has to come back in to right the ship. Hauser when he's not hitting his threes is essentially just doing jogging exercises out there. Thankfully, the starters will be playing a bulk of the minutes come postseason which will mask a lot of the bench issues.
Really bad loss… Just undisciplined play all around, and I really don't get why we so often went with JB as the primary ball handler in the 4Q and OT when Pritchard was hot, Pritchard, D. White, Tatum and Holiday are all better ball handlers who are much better at facilitating the offense… JB just ran into dead ends. As great as JB can be, he should be a cutter and fast-break threat – not "ISO or stand in the corner". We're not playing to our strengths at all.
Jrue blacked out.
I ❤ queta but i think Joe left him in 2 minutes too much. What do you think @john
Gotta play through Tatum especially when it's a close game. But nobody respects Jaylen's 3 nor White's 3, so the spacing isn't good. Tatum is going to force help. Let him get the defense in rotation because right the offense is super stagnant
The game almost looked rigged.
Stop fouling when up 3. That is so overrated.
Thank You. I will take it Again. That's twice now In Boston. Lets Go Hawks
They stink. Middle of pack team at best. It’s thatbsimple
At least JB is ok.
Holiday and White just aren't as good! Backcourt issues?
Best quote of the pod was, “PP wasn’t going to let this team lose. They just went off and lost without him.”
That is exactly what happened lol
They were shot it was a b2b no excuse Al should’ve played. How u sit and Kp also should’ve kept kornet in and as bad as jru was he should’ve been in the game at the end.
Celtics, "officially", are not more in the top tier of the League, along Cavs and OKC. In fact they left a month ago, when losing to the lowly Bulls, Dec/19. They won the next game vs Bulls again, Dec/21, but then went to lose vs Magic and Sixers, one after the other.
They (29/13) belong now to the 2nd tier, along with Knicks (27/16), Rockets (28/13) and Grizzlies (27/15). Former champions Nuggets (25/16) and Bucks (23/17), are getting close to this 2nd tier.
Let's see if they manage to hang on that second seed in the weakest Conference, or they continue their free falling.
We getting beat by bad teams 🤕🥊
When you have a coach that's more worried about how to figure out that everyone in society can punch each other in the face then figuring out his rotations period psychopath wear thin real quick anyone out there who's ever had to deal with a psycho you stop listening real fast
Don't see the Celtics repeating, that edge is off from last year, that inconsistency is keep happening from game to game, when last year they were just dominant and rolling, this year is up and down.
My goodness that Trae Young may only be 6’0 but he’s is undeniably one of the greatest playmakers in the history of the NBA. He completely dominated the game with his playmaking and his shooting gravity and not to mention he dropped 28 points. Bad loss but Trae it’s probably the most disrespected player in the league
Don’t get it twisted I do not like Trae Young at all but at the same time I respect his game and I don’t understand how people say other guards like cade Cunningham or Fox or even Brunson are better than him. He’s just as good as the scorer And he’s the best playmaker in the league. And I don’t wanna hear anything about defence because other than cade none play defense.
I have been a Celtics fan since thec1980s.'And they were a team to be proud of.And now they are becoming the laughing stalk of the NBA.They are playing as badly as the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox are playing. I am done.The team has become a total embarrassment.
I’m not going to blame this on Luke because he was good offensively. But he is a killer whale style target. On defense. If you put him in a pick and roll you get whatever you want. I noticed when Luke came back in in the second quarter we lost the lead. I noticed we came back in the third quarter with NEEMY on the floor. then Joe took him out, and we lost our pretty large lead. Just something I noticed. And NEEMY wasn’t amazing either but how can you expect him to be consistent when he only plays once every five games. Even when he has a. Great game and makes impact plays. Joe sits him. I don’t think the rule for the third center is as clear cut as Joe is making it look. I think if we gave NEEMY the minutes he could potentially become better than Luke. This season is clearly not being taken as seriously as it could be by the starting group(Or they are understandably, exhausted). we are just trying to make it through to the playoffs healthy why are we not trying to better our bench. We have a potential Jaden McDaniels sitting on our bench. I’m talking about Walsh who is 6‘7“ tall with a 7‘4“ wingspan who has shown flashes of good offenses, and is a scrappy athletic point of attack defender with length.., but he doesn’t touch the floor even when Sam is off and these games really don’t matter (no Al or kp So it’s not like we are trying to re-incorporate kp back.. It’s not like we can really learn anything about the starting group with neither of our starting centers)… So why not try and flearn something from your bench?) We will never strengthen our bench if we don’t give them minutes. Especially against teams like the injured magic and the Raptors and the pelicans we should be playing Walsh. because if he gets an offensive game, we have a rotation piece right there. My biggest gripe with Mazzula is that he is unwilling to play younger guys. I understand we want to win a championship but some of these guys are going to have to go next year and we need to get our bench ready to step into the roles they might be asked to play in the future. And yeah, we had a good game against the magic, but they had no siize in the paint..Of course, we would win that game. They were missing multiple key players, defensively and offensively … One gripe I have with NEEMY is he doesn’t roll hard enough to the rim. When he does it usually create separation so I’d like to see him get better at that with real NBA repetitions so him and the players are on the same page. him and JB were developing a decent connection but five games later they haven’t played together and that connection wasn’t there today. Obviously that’s not. Why they lost I just want to see these guys play and get better so we are not relying on seven guys and one of them can only shoot three pointers(Sam). I don’t think JB likes the new rotations. I don’t think he likes not playing the whole first quarter. It worked last year why are we changing it? This dude set the tone for the whole game last year in the first quarter. I believe he was like the highest scoring player of first quarters last year in the NBA and for some reason, Joe switched that?? And I. like Joe, as a coach, I like his philosophy I love his place style, I think people are confused and think he’s all about three-pointers, that’s not it he’s all about the best possible shot and usually that’s a wide-open three-pointer. Mathematically. But I do think he has trust issues when it comes to playing new guys. I also don’t understand why he tinkered with JBS minutes. Especially considering the fact that Jt played in the Olympics as well, and probably needs a break. But instead, Joe added to his workload… There are a few things I’m starting to question Joe about, but I still believe in him as a coach. I hope he hasn’t lost the locker room. And I don’t believe he has but somethings off like you said with JB and he is the tone setter for this team vocally and physically
Why was Kornet not in at the end of the game? Amazing night for him 6 offensive rebounds he would have gotten that rebound at the end I like Queta but a fast paced game is not for him
9 for 39 on 3 point shots from Brown, Tatum, White and Hauser. Only one person should shoot 3's and that is Pritchard. Why people do not see that shooting 3's is going to be hit or miss
Fucking biffed it
Bad loss. Move on. This team is clearly not focused or giving full effort right now. Obviously, that is not going to change until we get closer to the playoffs.
Not full effort, not full roster most of the season, #3 record in the NBA. The NBA is kind of a joke.
I might have to take a break from the Celtics and basketball for the sake of my mental health. We'll see…
Edit: I mean, they weren't THIS bad during the 22 – 23 season.
The thing about them so often giving poor effort is it leads to bad habits and then even whey you give good effort you end up playing sloppy undisciplined ball. You can't just turn it on on a dime and expect to be great, which is what they want to do. You have to have the killer instinct to want to be great every game and bring the energy an focus every game to be a well-oiled machine capable of winning a championship. They don't have that killer instinct. There's a lot of time left to get it going but the longer they wait the more their bad habits will snowball and the harder it will be.
how many times did the Hawks have? how many times did they capitalize?
Another loss the green teamers will sugarcoat. Teams are starting to figure the Celtics out. Over the last 16 games, the Celtics are 8-8. We could point to a multitude of things, but one thing that I will continue to go against is this ridiculous live and die by the 3 strategy. We shot 52 3's and only made 15. That is horrendous. This roster has so much potential to be multifaceted offensively, idk why we continue to be a one trick pony.
DWhite started to hit long 3's late, that's a good sign.
Hey John; I look at it this way. There were several things that were telling. I honestly think this team has decision issues on when to push the ball to the bucket and when to fall out to the 3 point line and create space.
There were several things that pulled our hair out. JT gets the rebound, Queta is completely open running to the basket on the left side and maybe 18 ft away. Jason passed to I think Pritchard who has a defender on him and only 5 ft ahead of him on the right. This would have been an open dunk for Queta.
Sam’s dunk that wasn’t, should have just layed it up if he wasn’t going to be able to…he was alone and open. Drew’s foul, he did pull on the arm, but I was as upset that Dereck was half fronting Trae. As Trae got to Dereck he was backing up with 10 ft of space knowing he already beat Drew…and JB had a difficult time but I’m thinking landing on his head didn’t help. Joe prob should have just kept him out. P balled as usual and should have had the ball more to facilitate at the end instead of more ISO by JT & JB. They keep going back to that instead of team ball and it keeps biting them in the arse…
They lost 8 home games. With the exception of one team, Memphis, if I’m correct, all the homeless is with the teams playing 500 ball or less. I’ve watched other games and see they take too many threes.