The Boston Celtics crumbled to Ime Udoka’s Houston Rockets, tumbling twice defensively within the ultimate 15 seconds of Monday night time’s battle at TD Backyard.
Houston executed back-to-back inbound performs, first catching Boston’s Luke Kornet off stability for a go-ahead dunk with 10.1 seconds left within the fourth quarter. Then once more, on the following Rockets possession, Amen Thompson capitalized on a miscommunication between Kornet and Jaylen Brown and scored the game-deciding bucket.
The déjà vu impact got here to life because the worst potential time for the C’s and though Kornet and Brown headlined the ultimate defensive collapse, head coach Joe Mazzulla redirected all of the blame to himself.
“These final two performs have been on me. These are my fault,” Mazzulla instructed reporters after Boston’s 114-112 loss, per CLNS Media. “I didn’t put us in the very best matchups. I noticed the play that they have been attempting to run and I attempted to vary the matchups and I put our guys in a troublesome spot. That’s a troublesome one as a result of I believed our guys did all the pieces to win the sport they usually put us in place to win it and I didn’t assist them on the finish. So, each these performs 100% on me.”
Boston took a 12-point lead with 8:38 minutes remaining within the fourth quarter and made solely 4 of their final 14 (28.6%) pictures. However that was simply the half of it. The Celtics additionally allowed the Rockets to muster up a 25-11 run to finish the night time and regardless of each premature setbacks, the reigning champions had an opportunity to flee victorious.
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Jayson Tatum cleaned up Boston’s first defensive miscue with a game-tying layup, shaking off a scoreless first half to come back by within the greatest second. But, as Mazzulla pinpointed, these efforts have been squandered. Tatum’s clutch basket went to waste as soon as Udoka’s squad pulled the carpet out from beneath Boston’s protection, leaving everybody at TD Backyard gasping in disbelief.
The defeat marked Boston’s ninth this season by which the group has blown a fourth-quarter lead, matching final season’s whole by 82 video games.
“It sort of simply was inside the timing of all of it,” Kornet instructed reporters, as seen on NBC Sports activities Boston’s postgame protection. “Clearly we have been attempting to modify. It was a bizarre factor of sort of just like the ball was being handed in and stuff after which sort of second-guessing it on the identical time as a result of we have been attempting to get in place. So yeah, it simply didn’t play out in a great way and it’s sort of laborious to say precisely — with simply the timing of it and attempting to make it occur and I feel it was transfer to try to get that going however it performed out in an unlucky means.”
Simply when it appears as if the Celtics are about to place collectively their first main which Brown claimed would come, the group topples over like a Jenga tower. Boston has gone 3-9 in video games following a win since Dec. 18, together with 4-6 at dwelling amid that stretch, they usually haven’t gained three or extra occasions consecutively since Dec. 31 by Jan. 3.
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Does that warrant a panic button smash? Probably not. Does it warrant some critical movie periods and pressing readjustments? Completely.
Submit-championship hangovers are the norm because the Golden State Warriors have been the final group to go back-to-back — seven years in the past — however chilly streaks ought to finish. The Celtics haven’t carried out like themselves final season and whereas they continue to be possessors of the NBA’s third-best document at 32-15, authentic flaws have been offered and exploited.
With 35 video games left within the common season together with an All-Star break intermission, Boston has time on its aspect.
