The Boston Celtics need to benefit from these pre All Star break struggles
The Boston Celtics currently find themselves in one of their worst positions since Gordon Hayward went down with an injury. They briefly lost the number one seed to the Toronto Raptors once before, but it feels different this time, because the Raptors are playing like a team that is not going to give up ground with their games in hand this time.
The problems the Celtics have been having recently are some of the same problems that have hurt them earlier in the year. Their offense can be non-existent, and their front court sometimes has difficulty sustaining the defense, especially with Marcus Smart out.
The Celtics have been wildly inconsistent, and the only way they are staying in games is if they are mounting miraculous comebacks and relying on late game heroics. Things have fallen apart in a bad way over these last few games, but these are the same problems that have hurt them all year long.
The Celtics have won far too many games where they have played no where near good basketball, and it is a lot easier to get complacent when you are winning, even if you are playing poorly. It might be easy for Brad Stevens to look past their record and see these major problems. For the players themselves, they can get overconfident in their ability to pull out these miraculous victories, and bring in the mentality that they do not need to be at their best to win.
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The moment the players start thinking they can get by without playing their best, is the same moment they stop improving. Winning games is how the Celtics get home court, but getting wins cannot be an excuse to not improve, and it feels like that has happened at times this year with the Celtics.
There have been times when the team has not played with the kind of energy and intensity that they need to be at their best, and they’ve adopted the mentality that that can just pull themselves out of bad situations, enabling unsatisfactory play for long stretches during games.
Getting rid of that mentality is just one part of this team improving come playoff time, and getting beat so badly this close to the All Star break could have a major impact on that mentality that has hurt them this season.
This has been the biggest wakeup call that the Celtics cannot just coast and pull themselves out of far too difficult situations. This could be the stretch that gets the message across that the Celtics have been winning in an unsustainable way this season. This is the first time their unsustainable play has really hurt them in the standings, and the more time they have to think about that the better.
The Celtics still have won a lot of games, so there will not be an immediate overnight change, but this is a nice reminder of how bad things can get for the Celtics. They have gone through stretches where they have lost games this season, but this is the first extended stretch where they have been non competitive.
As long as the Celtics are competitive, it is easier to ignore certain loses, and the kind of play that is leading to those loses. The Celtics can justify loses that, if a couple bounces when their way, they would have won. When they are completely dismantled and mount no comeback against the teams they need to beat, it is impossible to stay complacent.
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Struggling like this right before the All Star break will force the Celtics to spend a lot of time thinking about how much better they have to be, and that could be the motivation they need to really improve heading into the playoffs.