![]() ![]() Phoenix also was without centers Deandre Ayton and JaVale McGee, and former Celtic Jae Crowder. Assistant coach Kevin Young took over the coaching duties. That put Young at the line, and he nailed both freebies to put the Hawks back on top.The Suns were decimated by COVID-19 protocol. His most inexcusable Marcus Moment came with 15 seconds left, when with the Celtics up by one point, he needlessly fouled Young a mile away from the basket. He had his bad-pass turnover with three minutes left that led to a Young three, and then was called for an offensive foul with just under two minutes left that turned into three made free throws by Young. ![]() But he was a mad man at the end of the game, and couldn't rein it in at the end of the game. But Tatum has been criticized for not wanting to take control of the moment, and on Tuesday night, you could have filed a missing person's report on him during the fourth quarter. His last-second air ball didn't even count toward that shot total.Ī lot of that had to do with the fact that he was being double-teamed, and that Jaylen Brown was absolutely cooking. He attempted just two shots in the final frame. He was terrible from downtown, hitting just one of his 10 attempts.Īnd when the Celtics needed their best player to score a bucket in the fourth, Tatum was nowhere to be found. Tatum was off for most of the night, hitting just eight of his 21 shots. The playoffs are not the time to save timeouts and see if your team can work through its issues. This should all be a good learning moment for the first-year head coach. And that second-to-last play that Mazzulla drew up was. In addition, it would have been nice to see the Celtics' defense hit Young with a double team as he torched the TD Garden floor with every step he made over the final minutes. Smart was clearly having a rough night, and either of Boston's other guards would have been a nice change for a team that really needed a change at that moment. We'll also call into question why Derrick White was only an occasional contributor as it all fell apart, and why Malcolm Brogdon didn't play for the final 7:22. The Celtics had been lethargic and unable to execute for nearly four minutes at that point, and their double-digit lead was extinct. He did not.Įither instance would have been a great time to call a timeout, give a pep talk with some salty language, and get the team's head out of its posterior. He had another opportunity to calm the Atlanta storm after Young came up with a steal on a Marcus Smart turnover and splashed home another three with 2:42 left, tying the game at 111-111. It would have been wise to calm things down and rally the troops after Jayson Tatum threw a possession away, leading to a Trae Young 27-footer to make it a three-point game with 3:18 to play. Mazzulla had timeouts in his back pocket as the lead disintegrated in the final four minutes. That works in the regular season, but as we saw Tuesday night, not in the playoffs. The head coach was a bit of a spectator for the end of the game, using his regular-season method of letting his players play through slumps in hopes that they'd figure it out. The Celtics have no one to blame but themselves after blowing a 13-point lead with six minutes left in Game 5. They were on fumes by the time they reached the NBA Finals because they had to go seven games against both the Bucks and the Heat, when both of those series could have been wrapped up in six games.Īnd here we are again, with another needless game on the horizon on Thursday night. Lessons should have been learned last year as the Celtics kept forcing themselves to play games they really shouldn't have had to play. ![]() They are pretty good at building leads, but they are horrendous at getting to the finish line with those leads intact. What we still don't know is if these Celtics will ever gain a killer instinct to win. The Celtics did both in Tuesday night's Game 5 collapse. We learned throughout last postseason's run that the Celtics do a spectacular job losing games in painful fashion, whether it's squandering a chance to take control - or end - a series or blowing a large lead late. The latter should still happen, but the Celtics are once again taking the hard road this postseason. BOSTON - The Celtics are waking up Wednesday morning thinking about another trip to Atlanta, instead of sleeping in and resting up for a second-round matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. ![]()
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