We can all be impressed with the attempt by the Boston Celtics to make the score from Sunday seem respectable but, in actuality, that’s really all the fourth quarter was good for.
Overall, the team’s top performers were Jayson Tatum, who scored 29 points, and Evan Fournier, who dropped 30. Unfortunately, however, no matter how impressive these aforementioned stats may seem, when you give up 130 points they really don’t seem to mean all that much.
Yours truly, the same guy who has spent the last month talking about how badly our C’s need a four or five seed officially no longer cares what seed the Shamrocks end up with.
Matchups don’t really matter when every team you play against scores at will.
Homecourt advantage also doesn’t matter all that much either when your uninterested effort on the defensive end gets you down by 15 points before the few thousand fans even have time to find their seats.
Regardless of the playoff seeding or the eventual outcome of the 2021 postseason, the Boston Celtics need to spend these remaining few games of the regular season trying to establish some sort of defensive pride and identifying amongst their troops to.
It’s never easy as a fan to start talking about priorities for next season at the end of a current season, but for Beantown, it appears to have come to that.
Is a deep playoff run impossible? Certainly not, but reality has come crashing down these past couple of games. This is far from a championship-caliber team and, for the Celtics, if the product is not championship caliber it’s time for some serious changes.
To be frank, forget playoff seeding and playoff matchups.
At this point, I just want to see the Cs not give up 70 plus points in a half.
All season I’ve made excuses for this team; COVID 19, injuries, a shortened off-season have all seemed like valid excuses for the majority of the year.
However, with this team, it’s time to stop making excuses and accept the fact that they are short on talent which, in this league, is everything.
The rest of the season will now be about finding lineups and rotations that can work well together on both ends of the court. These lineups and rotations may not lead to a deep playoff run, but they will lead to a knowledge of what young players to invest in & develop and what veterans they should consider moving on from.
At this point, that is immensely more important than a higher playoff seed.