Boston Celtics: Cs constantly struggle to set the tone

The Boston Celtics have been perhaps the most disappointing team to step foot on the floor during the 2020-21 campaign.

After making it to within just two games of reaching their first NBA Finals appearance in over a decade during last year’s Lake Buena Vista bubble in Orlando Florida, the shamrocks have seemed like a shell of the team that came into the year with the fourth-best odds of winning it all by season’s end.

Despite a few ups such as seeing two of their players in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown being selected to the All-Star game as well as embarking on a few multi-game winning streaks, fans have experienced far more downs, with examples being huge upset losses and health issues galore.

Now, at 35-33 with just four games remaining on the docket, it’s becoming more and more likely that this team will miss out on an auto-lock for the postseason and, instead, take part in the league’s inaugural play-in tournament, where seeds from seven to ten will hash things out in a bracket-style series in an effort to claim the final two seeds within the traditional playoff format.

Like we’ve stated, the year as a whole has been quite a letdown and, while many feel as though there are far too many causes for their cataclysmic fall from grace to pinpoint one main catalyst, veteran wing, Evan Fournier, believes that a “lack of physicality” from the jump has been a major factor in their lackadaisical production.

Fournier does have a strong point with this stance, but perhaps the biggest emphasis for the Boston Celtics should be focused on starting off both halves strong to set the tone early on.

Since the team’s last extended stretch of success, where they rattled off six-straight wins, they’ve dropped seven of their last 11. During these outings, when looking at the team’s point differential in both the first quarter and third quarter, Beantown gets outscored 316 to 305 during the kick-off to the first half and 334 to 3019 during half number two.

In total, the Boston Celtics have only finished off the first-quarter with the lead five times, three of which resulted in a win. When it comes to a third-quarter lead, the team managed to achieve this goal three times, with two of them resulting in wins.

Setting the tone early is a major key to steering a contest in the C’s favor, and coming out of the break hot as well will only wind up benefiting them in the end.