Celtics player grades: Boston loses to the Washington Wizards, but may yet right the ship

Lots of promising signs were to be seen — so long as it didn’t involve 3-point shooting.

The Boston Celtics fell in double overtime yet again after shooting so poorly they might have missed the sea with a rock, yet the Celtics’ 115 – 112 road loss to the Washington Wizards might have been one of their better games of the season just the same.

If you are confused, we understand why. This squad has already snapped right back into the mold of “team-with-potential-that-never-reaches-it” mode as it was for virtually all of last season. But after a cluster of low-effort, unfocused games for Boston that saw it dredge up all of those bad vibes, it showed it actually is able to play with effort and focus, even if the schema new head coach Ime Udoka is trying to install on both ends of the court still needs a fair amount of work.

Let’s dive into a more granular analysis of why we feel Saturday’s defeat is about as close as one can get to a “good” loss, even if we don’t really believe in the concept.