Boston Celtics: Not First Or Last Time They Will Struggle This Year
The Boston Celtics have proven they can bounce back from these kinds of struggles
The Boston Celtics suffered one of their worst loses of the season to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and are on one of their worst four game stretches this season. A lot of their problems are being exposed right now, and the miserable end of being so inconsistent is taking over.
The Celtics have not fixed anything on offense, and the defense is starting to fall off. The rotation is all over the place, and they are giving up absurd runs in every game. The Celtics have trailed by more than 20 points in each of the last four games, and they have not been able to get it close against their top competition.
This is never the way you want to go into the All Star break, but it is also not the first time we have seen the Celtics like this. They have been inconsistent on the court all season long, and they inevitably get to the point where that is unsustainable.
The Celtics have a lot of problems that need to be fixed, because the way they have been playing makes things far too difficult on themselves. They have been the best team in the league at mounting these crazy comebacks, and unbelievable clutch victories, but that is not how you are going to sustain winning.
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This is the Celtics team that followed six straight wins, including victories against the Cavaliers and Warriors, with four loses, two of them being against the Magic and Lakers. And right before that six game winning streak, the Celtics lost three of four.
The Celtics are playing incredibly poorly right now, but that does not necessarily mean the team has regressed. The Celtics have never been at a point this season where they were consistently playing.
Even when they went on their great streaks, there were all kinds of comebacks and late victories. The Celtics constantly put themselves in some of the most difficult positions, and when you do that on a night when the Raptors or Cavaliers are playing well, there is no way of coming back.
Defense is always going to anchor the Celtics, and is the only part of their game that consistently helps them win. Right now they are not playing defense so it is no surprise it is a down stretch. The Celtics have gone on great stretches playing good and bad offense, but any time they are playing bad defense they are not winning games.
The All Star break is coming at a great time because it should allow Marcus Smart to get back in the lineup. The Celtics have proven they can play good defense without him, but the rotation is clearly our of sorts without him holding together their small ball options.
Stevens is having to trust his young and versatile bigs a lot more, because there are so many different roles that need to be covered with Smart out of the lineup. They also need to figure out how to integrate Greg Monroe, and a lot of things have not been working.
The Celtics are still transitioning with this new core, and they are not going to magically function properly on a consistent basis. We have seen how good the Celtics can look when they are at their best, but they still are not good enough at getting in a position to play that well.
Chances are the Celtics are not going to fix all these consistency and shooting problems by the playoffs, but Brad Stevens has been a master at getting his teams to improve after the All Star break. It is hard to expect so many young players to improve, especially when they have played well, but the young players on this team still are not able to have their best impact on a consistent basis.
The Celtics can see the potential with these young players, but it is hard to expect them to improve on an already great season. That being said, there is so much more potential with all these players, and the more time they have to get comfortable and figure out more things about their game, the more consistent they should be.
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The Celtics have proven that they will bounce back from stretches like this, but that does not solve their problems this season. The Celtics need to prove that they can play consistently and not rely on comebacks and clutch heroics if they want to be contenders this year.