The Boston Celtics picked an inopportune moment to have their worst shooting game of the season – can they survive it against a hungry Raptors?
“I felt great. I felt great going into the game,” explained Boston Celtics star shooting guard Jaylen Brown.
Unbeknownst to Brown, the basketball gods had other plans.
Whether a team that had won just one of their last five meetings had gotten in their collective heads, or whether it was just one of those bizarre nights when nothing went in no matter what else was going on, the Celtics had their worst-shooting night of the season at nearly the worst possible time imaginable.
Just 48 or so hours removed from missing a 3-0 series lead by 0.5 seconds, Boston saw that series tied up at two games apiece after they shot just 20% from beyond the arc, including hitting just five of 22 open 3-pointers, per ESPN.
And no, these are not typos.
7-for-35 on the night from 3-point range, the Celtics went two shots worse than they had in their worst game of the regular season from deep, which saw the team shoot 21.6% from 3 against the Washington Wizards on January 6th.
Needless to say, they lost that night too.
“Shots didn’t go down for me. Open shots, good looks,” explained a frustrated Brown.
“[I’ve] got to shoot it with confidence and let it fly. The coaching staff believes in me, my teammates need me, and I’ve got to get off shots, period. It’s the playoffs; everybody knows it’s the playoffs, and like I said — ain’t really too much more talking needs to be done.”
“We’ve just got to come out and play better,” he added.
If anything, the effort level — and number of shots — from Brown’s teammates are something to be critical of on a night their opponent took 11 more shots and yet still only won the game by seven points.
In a series without Gordon Hayward, the Celtics can’t be the less aggressive team — or there will be no more series with Gordon Hayward this season.
“That’s unacceptable on my behalf, to be honest,” suggested teammate Kemba Walker. “There’s no way I can just be taking nine shots. That’s unacceptable.”
No argument here, and it wasn’t just Walker that should be blamed.
In fact, only Tatum attacked at an acceptable rate, with he and Brown both attempting 18 baskets each — and in a night with the Cal-Berkeley product missing all but four of those attempts, the lacking aggressiveness in their teammates doomed Boston as much if not more than the cold shooting did.
Don’t expect Brown to let up any time soon though, nor should he.
“I’m a good shooter I’ve just got to make them,” said the Georgia native after the loss.
“It’s make or break time; two-two, the series is tied up. Obviously, we didn’t play that well — I didn’t play that well. We’ve got to bounce back and be ready to fight. That’s what it comes down to. Fighting so we got to be ready to fight for our lives next game. [We’ve got to] keep playing good basketball.”
“Open shots just didn’t go down — tough night,” he added.
“Honestly, man — I thought we had great looks,” added Walker. “Great looks throughout the whole game. We just really missed — we missed a lot of open ones that we normally make. We’ve got to make them. We have to make shots, when guys get shots.”
“When guys get open, we’ve got to knock those shots down,” noted the UConn product, stating the obvious.
Except it wasn’t, when it mattered.
“When you miss, as we know it can kind of cascade on you, and that’s what happened,” explained head coach Brad Stevens.
“We’ve got to handle that better. And I was pretty encouraged to halftime because we were shooting awful and it’s 49 – 49, but [it’s] just part of it,” he added. “Move on to what’s next, right? We’ve got to play better, got to shoot better, got to feel better, got to be ready to go on Monday night.”
If Boston doesn’t want to find itself in a game where a last second-shot is required to prevent the season from sliding into oblivion, they’d absolutely better be.
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