Celtics

The Celtics continued to plod to the finish line of the regular season on Thursday, falling 118-109 to the Knicks in a less-than impressive performance on TNT.

The Celtics continued to plod to the finish line of the regular season on Thursday, falling 118-109 to the Knicks in a less-than impressive performance on TNT. 

Here are the takeaways.

1. There are three reasons to have strong opinions about the result of Thursday’s game, if you are a Celtics fan. 

• You paid actual money to attend and were disappointed to watch your favorite players dispassionately going through the motions (even the Celtics thought the boos were fair).
• You argue a lot with people on Twitter.
• You are employed by the Celtics and are a part of the team’s Stay Ready crew.

The regular season is almost over. We promise. 

When it mercifully ends, the Celtics will need to start caring again. They will no longer be able to experiment. They will have to try. Every loss will actually be cause for concern. Every win will matter. We won’t have to do the “Well, remember that they have the best record in the NBA locked up” dance every couple of evenings. We won’t have to bring up the Denver Nuggets sleepwalking through the end of their regular season last year.

Until then, games like Thursday are pretty simple. The Celtics have 62 wins and no reason to play as hard as they can. The Knicks still have an outside shot at the No. 2 seed, and they are fending off multiple teams in contention at No. 3. The Knicks are a really good team who could challenge the Celtics in the East (OG Anunoby is perfectly built to bother the Celtics’ best players), but much like Tuesday’s loss, Thursday’s contest had more to do with seeding than with talent.

“I did not like the effort level in the first half, but … I think it’s just a tough spot to be in,” Joe Mazzulla said afterward. “I think our guys have handled that as best they could. Our last two games were against two teams that were highly, highly desperate, and as much as we want to be able to simulate that, that’s just not the position that we’re in. 

“But I actually don’t mind the result of the last two games, because I think it’s important. Going in with a bunch of wins and feeling good about yourself isn’t any better than having a little bit of a bloody lip because of a game. So they’ve done the best they could over the course of this stretch, whatever it’s been, a week and a half, but no, I didn’t like it in the first half.”

2. For their part, the players sound confident they will be ready when the postseason starts. 

“We’ve got to nip that in the bud for sure now,” Jaylen Brown said. “We’re not allowing that. It’s different if you win or you lose off X’s and O’s or whatever, but teams just got 20 more shots on the glass, and that’s rebounding. I only had one rebound tonight. We’ve just got to rebound. We’ve got to play physical, more tough, and we’ve got to get the job done. We’ve just got to nip that in the bud.”

Tatum noted that the Celtics have lost two in a row, but it doesn’t define them.

“We had a great season thus far and a great job of managing the season,” he said. “You play 82 games, we’ve had a bad three days. But overall, best record in the league, 15 games ahead of second place. We not perfect, but, you know, we can learn from these and it is a tough position to be in. But we asked for it, so, you know, we do have to be better.”

Kristaps Porzingis understands the fans’ frustrations. 

“Maybe we’ll get our ass kicked again one more time to start the series, who knows?” he said. “And then it’s a wake-up call for us. But most likely, if I have to bet, we will show up at the level we need to show up. But it’s on us. It’s on us and as I said, I don’t think it’s … Yeah, I don’t think it’s a habit for us.”

3. The Celtics did not have a single player top 20 points. Tatum had a team-high 18 on 5-for-13 shooting, but he and Brown combined for an icy 2-for-12 from 3-point range. In the second and third quarters combined, the Celtics finished 3-for-20 from behind the arc while the Knicks went 11-for-26 (42.3 percent), so if you were wondering when the game got away from the Celtics, it was when the Knicks hit eight more 3-pointers over a 24-minute stretch. 

4. Jalen Brunson scored 43 and 45 points in consecutive nights prior to playing the Celtics, and he was fouled in the closing seconds of the third quarter sitting on 38 points, which gave him a real opportunity to hit 40 again. Instead, he went 1-for-2 at the free-throw line and couldn’t stretch his streak to three. 

Brunson is having a special season. 

5. The Knicks dominated the Celtics on the offensive glass, especially in the first half, and outscored them 22-12 in second-chance points. As Mazzulla noted, doubling Brunson is problematic against the Knicks because it drags a rebounder away from the rim.

“It’s a fight,” Brown said. “Just got to have the mentality of, ‘if I’m not going to get the ball, he’s not going to get the ball.’ It’s a choice. We kind of like expecting the ball to bounce in our direction. Other teams, just jumping over our backs and we’re just kind of watching. We’ve got to be better at that. I think that’s the mentality and we’re going to limit that.”

6. Prior to the game, Derrick White was honored with the Red Auerbach Award, which is given to the player who “best exemplifies what it means to be a Celtic.” White was given the award for having “exemplified passion, determination and leadership” this year.

Afterward, a reporter asked Mazzulla if there’s a moment this year by White that stands out. 

“He represents everything it means to be a Celtic and a great teammate,” Mazzulla said. “So I mean, no, there’s not one play. There’s probably a thousand plays. A thousand things he does in practice or in the locker room or off the court that lead to that. There’s not many people that are more deserving than he is.” 

7. The Celtics’ bench unit actually made the Knicks sweat briefly in the final minutes, flying around the court and playing with enthusiasm to trim a lead that stretched as high as 31 to nine. Led by Sam Hauser and Payon Pritchard (12 and 10 points respectively in the final quarter), the bench unit outscored the Knicks 38-18 in the final 12 minutes.

8. The Celtics face the Hornets on Friday before they close the regular season against the Wizards on Sunday.