Celtics (48-12) at Cavaliers (39-21) Game #61 3/5/24

[Phantom255x]

The execution late and lack of a timeout call are definitely fair things. But overall, the fact that they blew a 22-point lead AND lost without Mitchell + Strus and others to me is the bigger story. Even if they won close it might not have looked as great.

With that said, who really cares? They are still 7.5 games up on the 2 seed and at this point I think the bigger priority is health.I'm not making excuses for them but it is a long season, sometimes teams coast and they simply won't bring it every night. The 73-win Warriors team still lost 9 games during their season. It happens. To me it's really a problem if they now lose 2-3 in a row here.

I strongly agree.

Yeah, and just to be clear, I agree that a lot for this team and the coach will come down to playoff performances and late game execution. It's fair to have your doubts and concerns. But again, none of us can really judge that until the actual playoffs. They've had an awesome regular season and the goal needs to be playing well + staying healthy. They really haven't had many bad losses this season. Only 3 IMO (Lakers without AD/Lebron + last night + Clippers blowout loss). Bucks blowout loss felt to me more like a scheduling thing.

[Donoghus]

I think its the manner of the loss rather than the loss itself that has got people rattled.   I think most of us were anticipating a loss or two on this road trip but not that way.

[ozgod]

Dean Wade outscore the whole Celtics team in the 4th quarter 20-17…inexcusable

Yeah, him going heat check on top of the Celtics offense devolving into stagnant, ISO, hero ball was a recipe for disaster.

I didn’t see stagnant hero ISO ball on offense. They had a lot of good looks that they usually make. Several open 3s and missed 10 footers. I was disgusted with the last possession. It’s EXACTLY the same issue they had in the playoffs last year when they took too long getting into their set and Smart hit the would be game winner AFTER the buzzer. And, I believe they did that another time this year. So, Tatum is obviously not learning from these failures. And Joe should recognize this and call a time out. The second Tatum started walking the ball up, I was screaming that he needs to push. Joe should’ve called a timeout with 14 seconds left when he saw this. Failure on both Tatum and Joe’s fault and a pattern they keep repeating.

If you look at the replay of the last 20 sec you see Joe screaming at Tatum and waving his arm forward telling him to go quicker, Tatum just kept looking at him and dribbling near the logo, waiting for someone to give him a screen, which White eventually did.  But even after the screen he waited till the clock had nearly run down which gave Cleveland the time to double team him. Joe finally tried to call a timeout just before Tatum started moving but nobody heard him apparently. Execution fail all around.

Even in varsity and YMCA ball you have set plays you generally go to to get a bucket when the clock is running down, so that you’re not freestyling in that situation, for a pro team I’m sure they have end of game plays they practice so that they have something to run in case they have no timeouts. If Joe is teaching them to be able to be more autonomous he needs to do a better job because they clearly didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing in thst instance.

[ozgod]

I think its the manner of the loss rather than the loss itself that has got people rattled.   I think most of us were anticipating a loss or two on this road trip but not that way.

It’s a loss where all the teams previous pain points were brought to the surface again… team gets overconfident, stops playing in the last quarter, lets the other team come back by 20, Tatum last second execution fail, Joe doesn’t call a timeout because he’s trying to teach the team something they haven’t learned for the past five years, I can see why people are upset

But in truth, I doubt it’s going to have any bearing on how we perform in the playoffs. As JB and KP said it’s a mentality loss. It’s really one of the few ways this team can lose… In a way they kind of beat themselves by not playing the last 10 minutes and Dean Wade had a game for the ages. in fact, they can guarantee that we’re gonna have a few more losses like this where they get overconfident and how good they are, they stop playing the right way and a team is going to shock them. But I can see how it’s going to rip open a lot of wounds for people, and create doubts.

[Donoghus]

I think its the manner of the loss rather than the loss itself that has got people rattled.   I think most of us were anticipating a loss or two on this road trip but not that way.

It’s a loss where all the teams previous pain points were brought to the surface again… team gets overconfident, stops playing in the last quarter, lets the other team come back by 20, Tatum last second execution fail, Joe doesn’t call a timeout because he’s trying to teach the team something they haven’t learned for the past five years, I can see why people are upset

But in truth, I doubt it’s going to have any bearing on how we perform in the playoffs. As JB and KP said it’s a mentality loss. It’s really one of the few ways this team can lose… In a way they kind of beat themselves by not playing the last 10 minutes and Dean Wade had a game for the ages. in fact, they can guarantee that we’re gonna have a few more losses like this where they get overconfident and how good they are, they stop playing the right way and a team is going to shock them. But I can see how it’s going to rip open a lot of wounds for people, and create doubts.

Nailed it.

[celticinorlando]

I think its the manner of the loss rather than the loss itself that has got people rattled.   I think most of us were anticipating a loss or two on this road trip but not that way.

This is correct.

[SparzWizard]

The execution late and lack of a timeout call are definitely fair things. But overall, the fact that they blew a 22-point lead AND lost without Mitchell + Strus and others to me is the bigger story. Even if they won close it might not have looked as great.

With that said, who really cares? They are still 7.5 games up on the 2 seed and at this point I think the bigger priority is health.I'm not making excuses for them but it is a long season, sometimes teams coast and they simply won't bring it every night. The 73-win Warriors team still lost 9 games during their season. It happens. To me it's really a problem if they now lose 2-3 in a row here.

I strongly agree.

Yeah, and just to be clear, I agree that a lot for this team and the coach will come down to playoff performances and late game execution. It's fair to have your doubts and concerns. But again, none of us can really judge that until the actual playoffs. They've had an awesome regular season and the goal needs to be playing well + staying healthy. They really haven't had many bad losses this season. Only 3 IMO (Lakers without AD/Lebron + last night + Clippers blowout loss). Bucks blowout loss felt to me more like a scheduling thing.

Don't forget last year when they lost playoff games without Joel Embiid playing and Dejounte Murray out. I think this a real problem where the opposing stars are injured or out and the C's just can't capitalize on it. It's either game plan issue or mentality but either way not a good sign that its bleeding over to current season. It makes me believe these habits don't die and come playoff time if an opposing team is undermanned they'll find a way to squander those games and potentially home court advantage of the series.