Boston Celtics’ complacency haunts once again in woeful Game 5 loss to Hawks

With 6:10 left in the game, it looked like the Boston Celtics were well on their way to facing the 76ers in the second round, but a late Hawks’ rally denied the defending Eastern Conference champions.

They did it again. Just when they were about to cross the finish line to close the door on a potential comeback, they decided to take a water break, allowing the much more interior runner to overtake them at the moment when everybody thought the job was done.

For the first time since 2018, the Boston Celtics will have to play a Game 6 in a first-round playoff series. Heading back to the TD Garden following a statement road victory in Game 4, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the two-seeded Cs would be taking on the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. The five playoff meetings between these two sides since 1986 have now all gone to six or more games. Despite receiving essentially no chance of testing Boston before the series, Quinn Snyder and the Atlanta Hawks have surpassed expectations, informing the NBA once again how talented of a coach he truly is.

When it mattered the most in Game 5, Trae Young and his Hawks showed up. Joe Mazzulla’s Boston Celtics did not.

Joel Embiid will now receive even more rest before his team resumes postseason play in the second round. Doc Rivers’ team took care of business against the Brooklyn Nets in a sweep, allowing their MVP candidate to get in the right place physically for a potential series that is going to require a lot of him on both ends of the floor. In his most recent appearance in front of the media, Rivers had no clear answer on when Embiid will be back, but the longer this Celtics/Hawks series goes on, the more games he will likely be able to play in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Complacency and playing down to their competition has been a theme that has come up at several points throughout the season. Especially, in the postseason, there is no room to get comfortable. Young is an elite competitor, and when he receives just that little bit of life, he takes full advantage of that. Atlanta’s backcourt will be back in full force in Game 6 as Dejounte Murray will return to Snyder’s lineup following his one-game suspension. Boston is now forced to face the consequences of its actions. Philadelphia receives more of what it wants while Atlanta gets one of its most talented scorers back into the lineup for a win-or-go-home situation on home soil.

In the final 5:20 of the fourth quarter, the Cs made just two field goals as back-to-back turnovers by Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart led to consecutive Young threes. There is no excuse for a team that has been here done that to blow a 13-point lead in the final six minutes of a game. Each game in the playoffs is a chance to make your path that much easier. This ball club knew what it had to do to close out this series, and they still could not execute it.

The Boston Celtics have to look themselves in the mirror once again after old habits crept back into their play during crunch time of Game 5

After the Game 3 defeat in Atlanta, Tatum expressed what he needed to do going forward:

"“I have to play better, I think…I had some timely turnovers, especially some reads at the rim. Maybe try and get fouled where I have to do a better job of making the decisions in some of those moments just in timely situations. So this one tonight is on me.”"

Insanity is going the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. This team knows what it needs to do, and yet again, they continue to make the task that much more difficult. Tatum, while he had just two turnovers on Tuesday night, his turnover with 3:26 left gave even more fire to the Hawks’ comeback. It is those mental mistakes. Those times when you can almost taste victory when these Boston Celtics tend to falter by the wayside. Boston already gutted out a tough road win in Game 4, providing it with a chance to close things out in front of the Celtic faithful. Again, they shot themselves in the foot, having to go back on the road for an extremely unnecessary Game 6 against a team that may have the worst defense of any team left in the playoffs.

Whether it was Game 6 in Boston last season in the Eastern Conference Finals, or Game 5 a round earlier against the Bucks, the C’s core has become known for making their jobs much harder than they have to be. This team was forced to go on the road twice following two home losses to keep their season alive en route to the NBA Finals in 2022. Each time, they battled through the adversity to secure some incredible road triumphs even though both the second and third-round series’ last season did not have to go seven games.

Despite the fact that this “self-security” has been something that has crept into the play of this franchise throughout the time of Tatum and Brown at the helm, the first round has usually never been this large of an issue. In three out of the last four seasons, the Boston Celtics have swept their first-round opponent. It is all about staying together, and each Celtic in their postgame pressers expressed the need to support each other as they travel down south.

Atlanta is a team that has shown they do not back down from a fight. Mazzulla’s men, while more talented must be ready to match that sort of intensity for the entire 48 minutes of the game. It is going to take a lot of mental toughness to put this behind them, but that is something they are all too familiar with. This has to be a turning point, a teaching moment for a team that has unlimited potential to win those extra two games they failed to do last June.