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Tim good morningESPN
After the Boston Celtics suffered their worst loss of the season on Sunday afternoon – a 104-91 run at the hands of the Washington Wizards, who entered the Eastern Conference on Sunday with the worst record – star Kemba Walker had a simple diagnosis for the team’s illness.
“[We] you just have to play harder, “Walker said.” Ready. We don’t play hard. We don’t play as hard as we know we can.
“When you play hard, great things happen. And right now, our game has not been consistent. As I said, we will continue to watch the movie and learn from our mistakes and improve.”
The Celtics are now 13-13 years old, for the first time they are .500 or worse by the end of the season in six years. The defeat was exacerbated by a loss to the Detroit Pistons at home on Friday – which had been the worst team in the East before beating Washington, defeating the Celtics.
An optimist could try to minimize Friday’s result as it is the second half of a back-to-back against a rested opponent. There was no such excuse on Sunday, as the Wizards improved to just 3-14 this season, when Russell Westbrook is in line to control the game throughout, especially in the second half.
While the Celtics made a late run during the trash to make the final score look respectable, the Wizards – who came in Sunday with their 29th NBA defense – led by nearly 20 points in most of the game. second half, while Boston hit one jumper after another.
Walker and Jaylen Brown each scored 25 points and shot a combination of 21-for-39 from the field and 6-for-12 from the 3-point range, but their teammates were unable to buy a bucket. The rest of the Celtics were a pathetic 12-for-51 (23.6%) off the field on Sunday, including 3-for-23 in the 3-point range.
Boston lasted nearly 21 minutes from the middle of the second quarter to the start of the fourth, which included 13 consecutive misses from everyone on the team except Walker and Brown.
“It could be,” Brown said when asked if this weekend could be considered the fund for the Celtics. “It depends on everyone’s mentality, how we enter every day and prepare to work.
“If you let it be a bottom-line mentality, then it will be. [If] you come to play, then it will show. And today, we were not very good. “
Playing without Marcus Smart, who missed the last two weeks with a calf stalk, the Celtics’ lack of depth – especially on the wing – and the score punch were exposed.
Apart from debutant Payton Pritchard, who impressed and sculpted a guaranteed place in the rotation of coach Brad Stevens, no one on the bench was able to provide consistent scores. Veteran Jeff Teague, who was brought in to support Walker, was awful, shooting with 28.6% on two-point shots. He’s been a healthy scratch in the last two games Walker has played.
While Pritchard quickly won Stevens’ trust, Boston lottery pick Aaron Nesmith did not win. He played on Sunday, finishing with five points and five rebounds in 29 minutes, but was visibly absent from the rotation this season, despite Boston being repeatedly without wingers.
To that end, Nesmith’s 29-minute Sunday represents 20% of his time on the field all season.
After the game, Stevens pointed to the garbage time, when the end of the Boston bench made a run to make the final score more respectable, as something to build on going forward.
“There are a lot of them,” Stevens said when asked what needs to be improved for the Celtics to return to the way they are used to. “We just have to be better at controlling the things we can control, playing together correctly at both ends of the field.
“If our team can play more like that in the last five minutes, then we can be as good as we can be. If we don’t, we will be on average … We have to play well to win. It’s not like we’re playing balls outside and we win that game. We have to play well, so when we don’t play well and take care of the little things, we definitely don’t stand a chance. “
After this weekend, the Celtics – who have now lost four of the last five and seven of the last 10 – will aspire to return to the middle game, but things will not be easier with MVP candidate Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets visiting Boston on Tuesday.
As Boston needs the next 48 hours to prepare for the game, Stevens – like Walker – said playing hard will be a prerequisite for anyone wanting to see the floor outside the team’s pillars.
“I think we have to look at it all,” Stevens said. “I know we talked a lot about formations and consistency and who plays and who doesn’t play, the guys who really move the ball or the guys who really drive the seats and who perform really hard must be the priority, in the sense of the game, for now around those our best players. And I think we have to get there, because it’s clearly a problem. “