It’s one thing not to have believed in the Celtics as title contenders this season. Despite their incredible and improbable regular season, there were plenty of reasonable reasons for playoff skepticism, but what we saw in Game 5 and Game 6 was something totally different. That was a Celtics team that has suddenly lost its identity at the worst possible time.
Luckily, there’s still a chance to right the ship in Game 7, but unless there are some major changes in the way the team is coached and plays, even if they pull out a win, it may not matter. They need to play better. But they also need to play the right way, and the way that got them here.
Celtics have given up on the bench
For one thing, Joe Mazzulla seems to have quit on his bench for some reason. Boston was carried all season by getting excellent plays from a number of unexpected players. We routinely watched guys like Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza, Hugo Gonzalez, and even Ron Harper Jr. swing games.
Obviously, I’m not expecting Joe to go 12-deep or go with full-on hockey subs in the playoffs, but the way that he has basically gone away from all of these guys, while leaning into the starters along with Payton Pritchard and Nikola Vucevic, is bizarre.
With guys like Sam Hauser, Derrick White, and Neemias Queta struggling so much, it’s infuriating to see Mazzulla so hesitant to make any lineup changes after he thrived all season long at pushing the right button at the right time.
Math advantage has disappeared for Celtics
Furthermore, the Celtics players who are on the court just aren’t getting it done. This team won the math battle, stifling teams on the margin by dominating the three-point battle and creating extra possessions by winning the offensive glass, forcing turnovers, and limiting them on the other end.
But suddenly, they seem unable to do that anymore. They’re not generating good catch-and-shoot three-point looks. In the Game 5 loss, they shot just 11-39 from three, with just 17 attempts after half. Then, in Game 6, it was even worse. They went 12-41, but that included 4-13 in the final quarter when Joe finally turned to his stay-ready crew.
Turnovers and offensive rebounds have been just about even over the last couple of games, but Boston isn’t generating any second-chance points or points off turnovers. In Game 5, they pulled down 15 o-boards, but converted just 10 second-chance points, and in Game 6, they had just 3 o-boards through the first three quarters. The advantages they’ve enjoyed all season long have disappeared, and the team unsurprisingly looks extremely vulnerable.
The 76ers deserve a lot of credit for how well they’re playing, and how they’ve thrived to flip this math game. But if the Celtics play the right guys and play the right way, they should be able to win this series and loom as a threat moving forward. But if they can’t impose their will and keep looking the team we saw in Games 5 and 6, this season is quickly going to come to an end.
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