Boston Celtics Lose to the New York Knicks, 117-109, Drop to .500 on Season

The Celtics season long struggle in the first half continues

It’s been excessively difficult for the Celtics to score, or to defend, or both on most nights on the basketball court in the first half of games this year.

Against New York?

It was the same old song and dance. Poor execution offense in conjunction with poor effort on defense led to the Celtics falling to .500 on the year.

The Celtics were a step slow on both ends of the court as they just could not convert on looks on the offensive end, shooting just 39.2 percent from the field.

As of late, Kyrie Irving has carried the Celtics offense on his own two shoulders but Wednesday he had an off game, scoring just 22 points on an inefficient 9-of-25 shooting from the field as well as going 2-for-9 from distance. As Kyrie goes, so go the Celtics it would seem because it seems on nights where Irving can not score over twenty-five on mind blowing efficiency, the struggle for offense becomes even more pronounced.

With as many weapons on offense as the Celtics have, relying so heavily on Irving to carry them is unacceptable. Terry Rozier III has been anything but his regular self this year and tonight, the only noteworthy statistic he registered was a singular rebound. Rozier was a minus-15 in the 16 minutes he played tonight and was largely invisible during his time on the court.

Jaylen Brown looked disinterested for the first half and although he picked up his energy in the second half, the Knicks had already grasped control of the game by that point. The guard play of the Celtics was expectedto be one of the Celtics strengths this year, but it has been anything but a strength outside of Irving thus far.

On defense, the Celtics could were unable to bother the Knicks. The Knicks were able to get the looks they wanted and took full advantage of them. Whether it was on screen and roll plays on the sideline, offensive rebound and put backs, running off of screens or taking advantage of the Celtics switch heavy defense – the Knicks scored and scored often.

It’s worth noting that the Celtics offense and defense appears to perform significantly better with Aron Baynes in the game, but Baynes’ inability to play extended minutes prevents Brad Stevens to be able to lean on that while the Celtics sort out these issues.

The Celtics need to find and commit to some sort of consistency on both ends of the court. One way the Celtics can find consistency on offense is to consistently run in transition to take advantage of their length on the secondary break by establishing deep post position. On defense, the Celtics must decide whether the are able to intelligently play a switch heavy defense – otherwise a more man-to-man strategy may be beneficial.