Lakers (24-25) at Celtics (37-11) Game #49 2/1/24

[ozgod]

The game threat for the losses is always so much longer than for the wins. On to the next one!

And with good reason. This one in particular was a disgrace. Tatum and Brown have 4 ECF losses and 1 finals loss to their name. I don't see that record getting any better.

They are also two of the only players in the league who have actually made 4 ECF and 1 Finals in the past decade.

This was obviously a really crappy loss and the team deserves to be flamed for it, but it's also a massive (and hardly unexpected) overreaction from the fans. 

Every great team (including the 08 Celtics and 73 win Warriors) had embarrassing regular season losses to bad teams.  That didn't stop them from going on to win titles.  It's a longgg season, and this is a team pretty much built for the playoffs.  They have been a good 3+ wins above every other team in the league pretty much all season long.  At the end of the day these guys aren't perfect - they are still human.  I can imagine as the season goes on it probably gets extremely hard to keep yourself motivated to play with 110% effort when you are well above everybody else in the league and you're playing against d-league calibre talent in a game that's ultimately meaningless (because win or loss it will have no impact on your standings).

I'm not saying it isn't disappointing, or that it's not a sign of weakness...but everybody has weakness.  Jimmy Butler choked in critical games (4, 5, 6) against Boston in the playoffs last year.  Lebron choked bad in the finals against the Mavs.  Steph has choked in some playoff series.  Every player - even the true greats - have moments of weakness. 

I think this Celtics squad has done pretty much as good as any other in the league when it comes to maintaining their composure and playing with consistency.  We just look at every bad game under a microscope if its a Celtics game.

You gotta give us a break, we've only had the opportunity to complain about them and push the doom and gloom narrative 12 times this year so we're making the most of it 

[ozgod]

Also @Kernewek said this at the end of the Pelicans game thread about whether we are an entitled fan base:

Does he have a point? Are we expecting perfection from our team and wanting blowouts every game? I guess as fans that would be perfect  but I guess as a coach or a player you want to be put under pressure so you can learn how to react when it is applied to you. And since we all hate Joe, if it was Pop that said this, would it be a good point? Are we an entitled fan base?

It would have been a good point no matter who said it.

I'm not sure why this fanbase seems so unhappy half the time, given the talent on the roster, and the several-game-lead on the rest of the NBA in the standings, and the fact that we're simultaneously arguing whether we deserve a THIRD representative at the all-star game.  Every loss is treated as the worst affront to man, Jaylen's an overpaid bum, Joe is in over his head, etc etc.  The worst of the doom-and-gloom is typically confined to game threads where people tend to be overly emotional, that's one thing, but when it bleeds over into more rational topics I begin to question whether people actually even enjoy rooting for this franchise.  Some people here only seem happy if we're beating good teams by 30.  A few people here aren't even happy with that.  So you tell me:  are we entitled?

The part I haven't isolated is whether this is just a thing league-wide now.  I don't have a ton of discourse with rival fans, but for example, I've increasingly noticed that everybody thinks their own coach is the worst POS in the history of the league.  Last I checked, there can only be one "worst coach in the NBA", but I think 20 fanbases have claimed the title.  So maybe everybody is just miserable now, I don't know.

It's very simple.

As a fandom, we are happy when the ball goes in the hoop.

When the ball doesn't go in the hoop, we are sad.

If there is a sustained period (or half, or game) when the ball doesn't go in the hoop, we are very sad, even if the team can claw back a win as the game goes on. Because the ball has not gone in the hoop, and that has made us sad. And people who make us sad must be punished, if only through posts on the internet.

Tonight the ball didn't go in the hoop 56 times, and 32 times of that was from 3!!! And against our hated foes, AND LeBum was on the bench laughing at us, AND our humiliation was broadcast across the country on national TV. AND Jaylen scored 8 points and he earns $300m so each point cost $37.5m. And Joe who is supposed to be yelling and throwing chairs at them was talking some New Age gibberish in his press conference. So we are very sad  and mad    and someone has to pay for making us feel like this 

[Who]

Jrue, D White, and Jaylen all in single digits. 8-9pts each.

[SHAQATTACK]

Can him

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

C’s went from 20-0 at home to 22-3. Not good

They proved they can win at home; no need to do anymore until the playoffs.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

I’m actually glad they lost. In the overall scheme of things it’s clear they have an issue with the mental side of the game, not taking their opponent serious, being careless with the ball. A loss to a depleted Faker team on national TV is what they need for a dose of humility because they’re not as good as they think they are

This assumes that they'll actually learn from this experience. They've had plenty of other bad losses over the last couple years that they obviously didn't learn from, so I'm not confident.

[Yuckabuck33]

The solution from tonight's game clearly is that Lebron and AD were holding the Lakers back 

Or, without quality minutes from Luke Kornet we aren't winning anything.

[Atzar]

Joe's presser tonight will be required viewing once it gets posted up on Youtube 

Couple of things:

Washburn tried to ask him about the effort, and about how he's sure that Joe would have told them before the game "listen guys, they have 2 stars out, don't let up" and Joe says "Gary do your kids listen to you all the time" and Gary goes "but these are grown men" and Joe responds "Gary do you listen to what your wife tells you all the time" 

Then someone else asks him if he told his team they were an embarrassment and he said "I would never say that, I think that's very disrespectful and harsh...We have accountability, I tell them we didn't play well, we didn't put in enough effort, but I would never tell anyone they're an embarrassment".

He also said when asked for his reaction to the game, he said "well I'm p---ed but what good is p---ed going to do? It's not going to help us get ready for Saturday training and the game against Memphis...this is a stretch where we're not playing well and we need to embrace it and understand that if we don't play well and put in the effort this will be the result"

I guess the fact that he didn't give them a spray and told them they fail at life and throw a few chairs at people's heads might be a disappointment to some 

Man, what a question. 

Somebody really thinks you speak to a locker room of grown-ass men the same way you holler at your TV.

[ozgod]

Sir Charles is off the Celtics bandwagon. Says the Jays are too soft.

“The one thing you have to be as a great player — and this is on Tatum and Brown. You have to be tough,” Barkley said. “The team is gonna play like their best player. Brown and Tatum are great players. But they’re nice guys. I’ve never met a great player who was a really, really nice guy. … Tonight, this game should be over.”

Fellow Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal agreed with Barkley’s criticism against Boston.

“You’re playing down to your competition. And you’re not having that killer instinct,” O’Neal said. “So you were just loosey-goosey with the ball. … They’re not gonna let you embarrass them. You really have to beat them.

“And when you have that championship focus and mentality, it doesn’t matter who’s on the court. We have to beat you. And this team right here? They’re supposed to beat this team. But this is why they’re not championship-ready yet.”

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2024/02/01/charles-barkley-boston-celtics-los-angeles-lakers-nba-tnt/?p1=hp_featurestack

Gonna be plenty of space inside our bandwagon after tonight with everyone getting off 

[SparzWizard]

Sir Charles is off the Celtics bandwagon. Says the Jays are too soft.

“The one thing you have to be as a great player — and this is on Tatum and Brown. You have to be tough,” Barkley said. “The team is gonna play like their best player. Brown and Tatum are great players. But they’re nice guys. I’ve never met a great player who was a really, really nice guy. … Tonight, this game should be over.”

Fellow Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal agreed with Barkley’s criticism against Boston.

“You’re playing down to your competition. And you’re not having that killer instinct,” O’Neal said. “So you were just loosey-goosey with the ball. … They’re not gonna let you embarrass them. You really have to beat them.

“And when you have that championship focus and mentality, it doesn’t matter who’s on the court. We have to beat you. And this team right here? They’re supposed to beat this team. But this is why they’re not championship-ready yet.”

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2024/02/01/charles-barkley-boston-celtics-los-angeles-lakers-nba-tnt/?p1=hp_featurestack

Gonna be plenty of space inside our bandwagon after tonight with everyone getting off 

They right though. They soft. MENTALLY soft. A team of this caliber should be imposing their will against the now .500 Lakers who were without LeBron and AD at the TD Garden. 7 and 8 years and they still not championship-ready IDK when they'll be ready. Maybe another 22-year drought is true dating back 2008.

[ozgod]

Sir Charles is off the Celtics bandwagon. Says the Jays are too soft.

“The one thing you have to be as a great player — and this is on Tatum and Brown. You have to be tough,” Barkley said. “The team is gonna play like their best player. Brown and Tatum are great players. But they’re nice guys. I’ve never met a great player who was a really, really nice guy. … Tonight, this game should be over.”

Fellow Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal agreed with Barkley’s criticism against Boston.

“You’re playing down to your competition. And you’re not having that killer instinct,” O’Neal said. “So you were just loosey-goosey with the ball. … They’re not gonna let you embarrass them. You really have to beat them.

“And when you have that championship focus and mentality, it doesn’t matter who’s on the court. We have to beat you. And this team right here? They’re supposed to beat this team. But this is why they’re not championship-ready yet.”

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2024/02/01/charles-barkley-boston-celtics-los-angeles-lakers-nba-tnt/?p1=hp_featurestack

Gonna be plenty of space inside our bandwagon after tonight with everyone getting off 

They right though. They soft. MENTALLY soft. A team of this caliber should be imposing their will against the now .500 Lakers who were without LeBron and AD at the TD Garden. 7 and 8 years and they still not championship-ready IDK when they'll be ready. Maybe another 22-year drought is true dating back 2008.

Here's what Tatum had to say:

“Everybody had just a bad week of work,” Jayson Tatum (23 points) said. “Everybody here’s got a job. Nobody has great days every day. We’re no different. This is our job. We would love to be perfect. We would love to win every game, make every shot. But it’s just not the case. We’ve got to be better and look at ourselves in the mirror, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Meanwhile, Jaylen had little to say about Joe benching him, KP and White in the 3rd quarter after Jaxson Hayes outrebounded all three of them as the Fakers took a 16 point lead. KP said he understood why he was benched.

While Mazzulla struck an upbeat tone, the game provided evidence of his irritation.

Three minutes into the third quarter Lakers center Jaxson Hayes gobbled up a pair of offensive rebounds before converting a three-point play that gave his team a 16-point lead, and Mazzulla appeared disturbed by his team’s effort. He immediately removed Porzingis, Jaylen Brown, and Derrick White and kept them out for the remainder of the quarter. It was not unprecedented, but it was unusual.

Brown, who was named an All-Star reserve earlier in the night, mostly shrugged when asked about being pulled, but acknowledged that his play had been “lackadaisical.” Porzingis said Mazzulla’s choice made sense.

“We deserved it,” Porzingis said. “Of course we were [mad]. We’re [mad] at ourselves, and I completely understood. I never want to come out of the game, but I completely understood we had to change something.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/01/sports/celtics-lakers-td-garden/

Honestly if Joe had benched Jrue, Jaylen, KP and White who were clearly not putting in the effort and gone with PP, Horford, Hauser and Queta (the latter two put in more effort than the entire starting lineup) we may have won.

[tenn_smoothie]

Joe says, "It's not going to help us get ready for Saturday training and the game against Memphis.....".

"training" ??. Are you kidding me ? Do you know who calls practice "training" ? Soccer coaches, that's who.
So fine, that's soccer culture. But it sure as hell should never come out of the mouth of an NBA coach.

[SparzWizard]

I'm not sure if the fact that our two leaders of this team are both from the Gen-Z era, and most Gen-Z I've seen typically possess that "lazy work-ethic" mentality are what causing them to take all these circus shots and circus plays and less accountability. To Tatum's response, yeah, everyone has bad days. But three bad days in the same week? That's why you practice, and that's why you rally the troops together and hold everyone accountable. It's easy to say "oh we gotta do better" every loss, but you need to make it better on the spot. Got to change.

[ozgod]

More from Joe's postgame. He says he is ecstatic about the losses giving them a chance to grow and isn't concerned.

Early Thursday afternoon’s news that Lakers superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis should have led to one of the Celtics’ easiest wins of the season. Instead, it turned into one of their worst. From start to finish, the Celtics were outplayed, outhustled and outworked. They were punked by the undermanned Lakers in one of the more shocking results of this NBA season. They were booed by their home crowd in an ugly 114-105 loss that put an exclamation mark on their worst week of the year.

Mazzulla certainly wasn’t hiding from it.

“It’s great. It’s good. It happens,” Mazzulla said. “Stretches of bad basketball happen. You work your butt off every day to minimize those, but stretches of bad basketball happen, and we can’t sit here and act like we’re too entitled for it to happen to us. It happens. It’s a matter of how we respond to it, and can we work through it. It’s constant daily choices, daily habits that you have to commit to every single day.

“To think we’re not going to go through difficult times during an 82-game NBA season is not the right way to look at it. So am I p---ed about losing? Yes. But am I ecstatic about the opportunity for us to grow as a team? I’m even happier about that.”

Mazzulla waved the white flag with two minutes left, leaving his starters to stew on the bench in the final moments of this bad loss, a rare performance where their effort was questioned in what’s otherwise been a consistent season.

“I’m not concerned by it. I’m not happy about it, but I’m not concerned by it,” Mazzulla said. “I think it’s unacceptable. Doesn’t mean I’m concerned. We’ll work through it. I think part of a bad stretch of basketball is physical just as much as mental, and I think those two things go hand in hand.

“So I think it’s unacceptable for those things to happen, but if you take a look at the whole scope of our season, they happen very little. So to look at everything with just this lens of two games or a stretch or a week or whatever the case may be doesn’t do justice to the process of what we do over a long period of time. So it’s unacceptable, make sure you know that, but at the same time, it’s going to happen, and it’s a matter of holding guys accountable and working through it.”

https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/02/01/celtics-hear-boos-in-ugly-inexcusable-loss-to-undermanned-lakers/

[Kernewek]

I didn't have the opportunity to watch the game, so I can't comment on the vibes, although according to nearly everyone it appears to have been a throwback performance: Mailing in an 'easy win' and taking the foot off the gas as they look toward the All-Star break while having low effort come back to bite them in a trap game.

But one thing confuses me - somehow we wound up scoring more points in the paint than the Lakers, despite shooting 19 fewer free throws. Does anyone mind providing some context for that? It seems like it was more or less a 10-point game throughout, so normally I would think this is a fairly significant factor?