The Boston Celtics entered Friday night hoping to get back over .500 as they sat about half a game’s distance from the eighth seed. The Blazers were 18-26 and just barely hanging on to the last play-in spot in the tough Western Conference.
The C’s may have come into this game looking down at a relatively wounded opponent, as the Blazers have been competitive without Damian Lillard as they still manage to cling to a play-in spot.
Blazers stormed out to a 30-25 lead to end the first quarter and the Celtics flipped the scripts in second which led to a 58-54 halftime lead capped off by a dagger trey by Jaylen Brown.
This was a back-and-forth affair between these teams, as it culminated in six ties and eight lead changes.
The most pivotal part of the game came mid-way through the fourth when Boston went without a made field goal for over seven minutes to eventually lose by a final score of 109-105.
Nightly notables for the Blazers included Anfernee Simons who chipped in 21 points whilst starting in place of an injured Lillard and the Bosnian Beast, Jusuf Nurkic, who stuffed the stat sheet with 29 points, 17 rebounds, and six assists.
The bright spot for the Celtics was a commendable outing from the bench. There were 36 bench points on the night, led by the brilliant play of Romeo Langford and Grant Williams.
I feel like saying lone bright spot because, in a heartbreaking, gut-puncher of a loss like this, it can only lead me to these 3 takeaways from the night:
Boston Celtics takeaway No. 1) Jayson Tatum’s 3-point slump continues
Boston Celtics faithful better hope Jayson Tatum stuck around after the game to fix his recently broken shooting stroke. After tonight, the All-Star has missed twenty-one straight 3-point shots.
The wing has not hit a 3-pointer since the first quarter of Saturday’s game vs the Bulls. Do not get me wrong, every star goes through shooting slumps, but the issue here is Tatum should be trying to get inside of that arc.
It is common knowledge that getting to the foul line and seeing the ball go through the hoop is good medicine for a rough shooting night.
There is nothing wrong with going for more mid-range looks either — a made two is better than a missed three.
Tatum was 0-6 on the night from distance and the last three he took were the most costly. In the final possession for the Celtics, the small forward went full iso mode, essentially dribbling down the clock on the perimeter to take a heavily contested 3-pointer.
Keep in mind that Boston was only down two at this point.
Let’s try to make a basketball play here, maybe attack Jusuf Nurkic since he’s not a shot blocker. After all, the worst-case scenario is driving the ball aggressively is likely a draw a foul.
This late game collapse from not just the team, but your supposed leading star is killer.
The worst part of this whole situation is that Ime Udoka had no more timeouts available which, in turn, led to Tatum going into a hero ball mode and the C’s lose the game.
How number zero responds to this adversity in a shooting slump mid-season may very well dictate Boston’s playoff hopes?
Does Tatum try to shoot out of it in a Kobe-like fashion or does he try to impact the game in other facets?