Getty Ime Udoka, head coach of the Boston Celtics.
The Boston Celtics loss at the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers on December 8 ensured a lousy trip for Ime Udoka’s team.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers games were considered winnable by Celtics fans and analysts, especially after how the team performed in their previous back-to-back against the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers. However, a perceived lack of effort and defensive execution let the Celtics down in both of their Los Angeles-based contests.
As such, the Celtics have now slid back .500, with a record of 13-13. Sure, you can put some of the team’s struggles down to Jaylen Brown being out as he continues to recover from a hamstring injury. Yet, against the Clippers, the Celtics won three-quarters of basketball, per NBA Stats, but a second-quarter collapse saw them fail to capitalize on their dominance.
A mid-game slump isn’t anything new for the Celtics. Last year the team struggled mightily in the third quarter and often found themselves clawing out of a hole down the stretch.
Yet again, the Celtics blow the game in the third quarter. FYI, they won the 1st, 2nd and 4th. Ridiculous
This year, the Celtics have struggled in either the second or fourth quarter, with similar results – winnable games slipping away and frustrated coaching staff and fan base.
Udoka Frustrated at Lack of Effort
Speaking to the media following the Celtics loss, head coach Ime Udoka discussed his frustrations with his team.
“The effort and inconsistency is frustrating at times. We talked about this kid (BJ Boston), specifically him. But to play as well as we did in the first quarter, I mean, when you look at it, we won three-quarters other than the second quarter, with that 39-23 margin. Like I said, dug us a hole, and a lot of it was self-inflicted with the turnovers. Boston, we talked about how he scored 43 recently in the G-League, and in this team, his minutes have been going up, up, up, and so, I felt like we were surprised by him, and we specifically talked about him. Just like I mentioned, KYP, know your personnel, know who’s playing, and this kid’s getting a lot of run with Paul George and some guys out. But the effort and inconsistency, that part is frustrating, to play the way we did in the second half and not muster up that energy in the first half, or really the second quarter is a little frustrating,” Udoka said.
Offensively, the Celtics were still finding ways to generate good looks in the second, but their defense fell to pieces when trying to deal with the Clippers’ ball movement and drive-and-kick game. It’s also no coincidence that rookie BJ Boston found most of his success during this stretch of play, rocking the Celtics with 18 points on 87.5% shooting from the field, per NBA Stats.
If you want to put Boston’s second-quarter performance into context, no other player on the floor scored more than six points, let alone got into double figures.
Turnovers Haunt the Celtics
The Celtics gave up 22 turnovers against the Clippers, allowing 33 easy points as a result. For most of the season, Boston has done well by taking care of the ball, ranking 13th in the league, per NBA Stats.
Again, it was the second quarter where the Celtics did most of the damage to themselves, turning the rock over seven times. Udoka shared his thoughts on Boston’s inability to control the rock, noting that some of the turnovers were self-inflicted errors.
“Loose with the ball, a lot of times they were self-inflicted. Just throwing the ball all over the place. Other them trapping Jayson a couple of times, there was nothing else pressure-based. We talked about it at half-time. That was the story of the first half, I think we had 13-for-22 points in the first half, and we were only down 11 with that last three-pointer. So, it could have been an eight-point game, and with how poorly we played taking care of the ball, we were shooting 52%. That was the message, take care of the ball. A little bit better, especially in the fourth quarter, we only had three, but dug ourselves that hole to give them 33 points off those – that’s hard to come back from,” Udoka explained as he lamented the Celtics lack of execution.
It would seem that the Celtics are struggling to stay locked in for the full 48 minutes of a game, which in part could be due to their youthfulness. However, Brad Stevens attempted to address that shortcoming during the off-season when he added Dennis Schroder, Al Horford, and Josh Richardson to the rotation. Hence, the jury is still out on what’s causing Boston’s 12-minute lapses.
The Celtics will get another chance to work through some of their issues on Friday, December 10, when they face off against the Phoenix Suns.