Boston Celtics: The good, the bad, and the ugly from grueling Game 5 loss

The ugly for the Boston Celtics: Unable to keep composure

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, when a couple of calls went the way of Golden State, the Boston Celtics seemed completely checked out of the contest. Marcus Smart got called for a technical foul after Tony Brothers went rogue, and they couldn’t find the mental composure to claw back into the game.

You can point at the raw number of free throws or fouls on both teams and assess that the refs were Celtics favored, but there were quite a few questionable calls and even non-calls that left the C’s bench up in arms.

However, this cannot take a team out of an NBA Finals game. The momentum was taken by Tony Brothers and company, with Boston standing and watching from the sideline.

The C’s also missed ten of their 31 attempts at the free-throw line, unable to garner any sort of easy, consistent offense all night. As the game started to slip away, Boston stopped passing the ball, as they only finished with 18 assists compared to their 18 turnovers.

When the Boston Celtics are at their best, they’re staying engaged throughout entire possessions, not allowing a single bad call to rattle them and complain for the rest of the quarter. It’s understandable why they would be frustrated, but the mental composure of the entire team has to be better for Game 6.

There’s no other option!