Kemba Walker took the Boston Celtics loss Sunday against the Oklahoma City Thunder to heart, but in truth his recent spate of mediocre games is far from the only problem Boston has right now.
It’s true the UConn product hasn’t managed to find his footing since returning from a sore knee that kept him out of action for much of February. It’s also true that a late turnover by the Bronx native ultimately cost the Celtics their game against the Thunder.
Yet, there are other players on that team, and the blame rests on them as well.
Effort levels have been substandard on both ends of the floor, as noted by unofficial team captain Marcus Smart after Boston’s loss to the Utah Jazz on Mar. 6.
Injuries have been plaguing the team, with a player seeming to go down for each one that comes back.
With one of the least productive benches in the NBA in terms of offense, when one of those players is Walker, forward Gordon Hayward, or shooting guard Jaylen Brown…
…the results speak for themselves.
Again, the Celtics blew a double-digit lead at home. Again, they squandered chances down the stretch. Kemba Walker took this one hard after his late turnover.
“This is a low for us,” said Gordon Hayward.
On a team trying to find it again: https://t.co/o8P66iFS1y
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) March 9, 2020
All that said, good luck trying to convince Walker not to take it personally. “It’s frustrating,” said the former Husky after the Thunder loss (via The Athletic’s Jay King).
“That’s the second time it’s happened in three games. So I just have to be better and just find a way to hold onto the basketball,” he added, referring to a tie-up at the end of regulation against the Brooklyn Nets on Mar. 3 that put Boston’s opponent in a position to win the game in overtime.
And while Boston should do better if Walker plays better, it needs more from the rest of the team as well if it is to have any chance at all at catching the Toronto Raptors for the No. 2 seed in the East.
To maximize their chances and minimize the wear of a long, hard slog in the early rounds of the postseason, the Celtics cannot afford to lose more winnable games — if that ship has not already sailed.
“This is a low for us,” Hayward opined Sunday evening. “We have to try to build ourselves, crawl ourselves back out of it. I think we’ll find it again. We’re still the same team. We’ve just got to lift each other up, find ways to win basketball games again.”
The bravado of earlier in the season has mostly disappeared, and with it the communication and chemistry driving their earlier success.
And while there is time to right the ship, there is not much room for error with 19 games left in the season.
Celtics' skid continues as Thunder edge Boston 105-104 at home https://t.co/MVZt6Mh8rq
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) March 9, 2020
The sky is not falling, and Boston is still in a good position to have what almost anyone would call a successful season by almost anyone’s standards in October of 2019.
But this is not 2019, and the path to the banner is as open in the East as it has been at any time in the last decade. Perhaps with his eye on that ultimate prize, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens sounds his usual calm self when it comes to the recent skid.
“[Y]ou can feel like you’re on top of the world one week and you can feel like the sky is falling the next. That’s the hardest part about the NBA is that’s just the way it goes. We’re in a way right now where … we just don’t sustain it the way that we have and the way that we know we can.”
“I’ve lived this before with most of our good teams [going] through stretches like this — and usually two or three a year. This is our second one. Hopefully we can nip that in the bud and not have a third one,” he added.
Stevens is not wrong given the team’s final stretch will soon get much easier than in recent games, with only seven of those remaining 19 games against teams with a winning record.
But Boston will need to recover their health and their chemistry if they are to make the most of this special season they’ve put together after the wreckage of the season before.
Given the resolve we’ve seen from this group so far, it doesn’t seem too surprising Stevens isn’t especially concerned.
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