The Celtics insist all will be fine; should we believe them?

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Maybe the most maddening part is that there isn’t one singular issue to blame. Every one of Boston’s losses seems to be its own snowflake — something unique and slightly different from the last. Yet there are troubling trends, such as the team’s ice-cold shooting and inconsistent perimeter defense.

Kristaps Porzingis is playing some of his best basketball in green, and yet the team’s numbers are alarmingly poor even as he finds a groove while further removed from offseason surgery. Boston’s starting five was impossibly bad through its first 10 appearances together but seems to be trending upward, even if that group still couldn’t save the Celtics from the Lakers disaster.

Jrue Holiday hasn’t been nearly as crisp on both ends. Jaylen Brown’s offensive efficiency is way down in January. It sometimes feels like the Celtics could pry themselves from this funk if Derrick White could just find his mojo, but his current slump coincides with Boston’s struggles (13.5 points, 32 percent 3-point shooting over his last 18 games).

Jayson Tatum is having his most complete season, yet we’re still waiting for him to more frequently put the Celtics on those broad shoulders and carry them out of this rough patch.

Perhaps most concerning is this all feels a lot more like the 2022-23 season — the struggles at home, the instances of playing down to shorthanded competition — than it does the 2023-24 championship campaign.

Boston was so focused on getting back to the championship stage in 2022-23 that it sometimes skipped steps. In doing so, the Celtics routinely complicated their path, had to grind through the first two rounds of the playoffs, then bowed in the Eastern Conference Finals against an inferior opponent.

Recognizing that the status quo wasn’t good enough in the aftermath, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens made some bold offseason decisions that shook up the core of the team and delivered Porzingis and Holiday. Boston recognized that it could no longer sit on its hands and wait for a better outcome.

Which naturally makes us wonder about the current state of affairs.

We all know…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-insist-fine-believe-them-124627061.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2025-01-24 12:46:00

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