It’s never not jarring to see a 24-point lead disappear. On Sunday, it was jarring as ever when the LA Clippers cut the Boston Celtics’ gargantuan advantage all the way down to just three points early in the fourth quarter.
Blown leads are going to happen in basketball. It’s the nature of the sport. Teams get hot while their opponents go cold, then all of a sudden it’s a game again.
For the Celtics on Sunday, their near-downfall came from missed shots right by the rim. According to the NBA’s website, the Cs missed 12 looks within the restricted area, bringing them to just 55% on the day -- 12% lower than the league average.
To their credit, they managed to create a ton of those looks by evading the consistent dose of double teams from the Clippers.
“I thought our reads were pretty good,” Joe Mazzulla said. “We’ve got to be much better when we get the ball in the paint, of making those, and then regardless, we've got to sprint back. So I thought we made some good reads.”
Unfortunately, when you don’t convert on those looks at the rim, it’s basically like turning the ball over. The shooter is typically out of the play, creating a disadvantage in transition, as Mazzulla explained postgame.
“Everyone thinks that the closer you get, the easier it is,” he told reporters. “You have to be able to knock those down in the restricted area. And usually when you miss those, it starts at five on four at the other end, a guy or two behind the defense.”
Boston putting themselves in the hole like this all but erased their greatest strength -- the turnover differential. All season long, they’ve been great at taking care of the basketball while taking it away from the opponent as much as possible. They average the fewest turnovers per game (11), while forcing the 10th most (15.6).
Fortunately, these close misses don't feel like a trend waiting to happen
Jaylen Brown, though important to the Celtics’ win over the Clippers with 33 points and 13 rebounds, carried some of the blame for how close the game was.
“They converted on some of our misses,” he pointed out. “Some of those came from me. Just at the rim, I missed a few layups -- I missed a bunch of layups tonight at the rim. They were able to convert in the third quarter, and that kind of got them going.”
Though Brown tried to put the blame on himself, it was on everyone. Neemias Queta, who was shooting 65% from the field entering Sunday’s game, shot just 7-16 from the field while only taking shots in the paint.
The ball consistently found him after the Clippers would blitz, and he simply didn’t make them pay enough. There were some possessions where LA recovered nicely, but still there were others where the misses were inexplicable.
Ultimately, this just felt like an off day for him. Nothing more. Especially with how much better his touch has been this season.
Misses happen. It’s part of the game. According to Mazzulla, the difference comes in what happens after the misses.
“But, you know, we have to be great. Gotta be physical, gotta be great in the restricted area, and we gotta sprint back.”
Sprinting back is always a controlled variable. Players can do it at any point in the game. Thankfully, this Celtics team doesn’t lack effort. They just got stunned a few times on Sunday. Stunned, but not knocked out, which sometimes is the goal.
Walking away with a win instead of a loss, with all the momentum against them in the fourth quarter, is, well, a win for the Celtics.