Boston Celtics Need More Focus, Not Energy

Focus, not energy, has been holding the Boston Celtics back against lesser teams.

The Boston Celtics have been close to impossible to gauge since the All Star break. An already inconsistent team has brought those inconsistencies to new levels, and has put them in a bit of bizarro world where they are able to play much better against the top two teams in the league, than the bottom dwelling Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets who are fighting for a final playoff spot.

The Celtics have given us two of the best victories by any team this season, and have given us two of the worst loses of the season. The Celtics have been inconsistent for a lot of this season, but it it difficult to reconcile how the Celtics can shut down one of the most feared offenses in the history of the NBA, only to follow it up by allowing the Nuggets to do whatever they want on that end.

This issue of playing down to their competition has been something that has troubled them all season long. The difference, however, is that before the All Star break they were winning these close games against lesser competition. Boston’s unfathomable run in the clutch has slowed down a little bit, and the are now realizing that they need more then five good minutes to be winning these games, and they cannot expect Isaiah Thomas to do more than anyone else in the history of the NBA has with clutch scoring

A lot of people look at these issues and immediately point to physical effort. The Celtics have built up a reputation of being the team that always outworks their opponent, and never gives up that edge with 50/50 plays. While there certainly is some truth to the fact that the level of energy the Celtics bring against those top teams is better than the lesser ones, it is not going to be the only solution to this problem. The Celtics played with enough effort against the Nuggets if they combine it with the kind of mental focus they had against the Warriors.

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Even in that embarrassing loss to the Suns, the Celtics were still making those effort plays. Both Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart fought their way to multiple offensive rebounds off of their own misses and Avery Bradley was seen diving to the floor for the loose balls they know they need. The Celtics have used their effort as a bit of a crutch this season, with the mentality that they will make up for their mistakes with that effort.

It should not be too much of a surprise that they have adopted this approach. The Celtics have made the playoffs the last two seasons largely because of this ability to make up for mistakes with effort. The Celtics have been an under talented team that could not shoot and had a lot of defenisve holes. The Celtics managed to find all the little things that could make up for that, and built up this reputation of being the scrappy high effort team that will will themselves to a victory.

The unfortunately reality is that playing like that is setting the Celtics up for failure. Making the extra effort plays will lead to a lot of victories, but the make up this team has changed drastically this season. The Celtics need to continue to get that edge from their effort, but that mentality has come back to hurt them in the sense that they are having mental lapses on both ends, and they believe they will make up for all these mistakes with effort. The Celtics have reached a point where they are tolerating mistakes, with the assumption that their supreme effort will make everything okay.

The Celtics will have defensive breakdowns and poor decision making on offense, and they have adopted this mentality that they can let that happen against lesser teams, because their natural talent is enough as long as they kick it into another gear effort wise. This is the approach the Celtics have taken against both the Suns and the Nuggets. The Celtics allow themselves to lose focus, because of this idea that their blind effort will trump those issues, and now that mentality is leading to loses, because they are selling themselves short.

The most frustrating part is that is not the case in the bigger games. When the Celtics went against the Cavaliers and Warriors the effort was a given. The Celtics played with that supreme effort, but it was not the difference maker. Instead of taking the approach that their effort will make up for mistakes against large teams, they play with the mentality that any mistakes are unacceptable, even if they are playing with more effort.

When the Celtics played the Warriors, they made everything as difficult as possible on them on each possession. The Celtics had a game plan that they knew they needed to execute, and they never allowed the Warriors to get anything easy. The Celtics made sure that everyone was exactly where they needed to be on both ends and they functioned at an extremely high level on both ends.

Nov 18, 2016; Boston, MA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) gets up off the floor after taking a shot against the Boston Celtics during the first half at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports

The Celtics did not tolerate any kind of mistakes against the Warriors, and that mentality is what allows them to be at their very best. The effort is going to be there in the majority of games, but the focus is missing far too often.

Perhaps the Nuggets really are just a much more difficult matchup, but there is no way a team as talented as the Celtics should be letting the game be that easy for the Nuggets. They have some issues with their defensive personnel, and their ball movement and penetration causes problems for the Celtics, but the difference is that they did not take the same approach to Murray as they did Curry in terms of making things as difficult as possible for them.

The Celtics let Murray get comfortable, because they figured their defensive effort would be good enough anyways. They did not adjust the way they needed to, because they took their superiority for granted. They did not feel as though they needed to function at as high of a level, because they figured against a team like the Nuggets, effort alone would be enough.

The Celtics are no longer that overachieving group of hustle stars. They now have the talent to match up with some of the best teams in the league and that has been made clear with those victories against the Cavaliers and Warriors.

The Celtics have let these mental lapses cost them the two seed, at least for now, but hopefully this can be a wake up call. The Celtics need to realize that effort alone always leaves them in close games, and when that is the case they will inevitably come up short.

The Celtics need to reach a point where they can take their effort for granted, allowing them to focus more on the mental aspect of the game. If the Celtics play as fundamentally sound and stay true to their game plan as well as they did against the Warriors against these lesser teams, they will not even be close. The mental aspect is where the massive drop off is, rather than the effort.

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The Celtics will always look to effort as an issue in loses, because of the crazy standard they have set for themselves in that area. That being said, the difference in their wins and their loses is more about their mental focus, rather than the energy they play with on the court.