Boston Celtics Recap: Cs drop second straight in lousy performance

After initially going up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the Boston Celtics find themselves losers of two straight, while Toronto claws their way back into the series.

When the Boston Celtics lost at the buzzer in game-three, Cs fans didn’t really seem to bat an eye. What I mean by this is, sure, OG Anonuby’s last-second jumper was absolutely mesmerizing, but many — including ourselves — more so saw the exhibition’s outcome, not as a Raptors win, per see, but as a Celtics loss.

Behind this logic, one felt strongly in the idea that Boston could just make some minor adjustments in their next game and, in turn, easily come away with their third win of the series and seriously strike fear into the heart of Toronto.

That said, with game-four now come and gone we see the series split at two games apiece, giving this second-round matchup more drama than Celtics fans previously envision.

Unlike their game-three loss, however, game-four was can certainly be deemed as an all-out win for the Raptors.

The second-best defensive rated team in the NBA showed up against Boston Saturday, holding the recently hot from downtown Celtics (shooting 39 percent from deep this series) to just 20 percent on the night and forced 14 turnovers. Unfortunately for Beantown, like the highly ranked defensive rated team showed up, so too — finally — did the fifth-best 3-point shooting team, as they managed to convert on 37 percent of their deep attempts.

Leading the way for the Boston Celtics was Jayson Tatum, who dropped 24 points to go along with 10 rebounds, and three assists on 56 percent shooting from the field. After an underwhelming 28 percent shooting performance in game-three, his game-four efficiency was quite a nice follow-up.

Unfortunately, it was not enough to pick up the slack for the rest of his teammates.

Kemba Walker and Jaylen Brown did wind up dropping 15 and 14 points, respectively, but went a combined 3-17 from beyond the arc.

For the Raptors, All-Stars Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry had themselves a field day, scoring 23 and 22 points, respectively, while each notched 11 rebounds and nine combined assists.

Serge Ibaka and Fred VanVleet were next in line in the scoring department, dropping 18 and 17 respectively on a combined 60 percent shooting from downtown.

Only finding themselves leading once in the game, and never having it go above three points, it was evident that Boston couldn’t find their rhythm offensively while proving incapable of so much as stopping a nosebleed on the opposite end of the floor.

In game-five, adjustments certainly have to be made if Boston wishes to retake the lead in this now super-competitive series against the defending world champions.