Last night the Celtics aurora of all-time greatness took a bit of a setback. The floodgates of reality opened and their air of invincibility ended. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Celtics lost a game, at home no less. But should we be shocked and chagrined? Should we be sad and holding our head down low? Or maybe, just maybe, should we all have expected it and jumped of the hyperbolic bandwagon a while back?
The Boston Celtics lost last night for a lot of reasons. They played poor defensively especially around the perimeter and on the high post pick and rolls and pick and pops. They missed a lot of easy shots from within 2 feet of the basket. They shot poorly from three point range. They missed bunches of free throws. Their bench played poorly. Two of the Big Three played poorly. They went away from their own offensive game plan and what was clearly working, especially at some of the important junctures of the game. And, the Phoenix Suns are a good team that played a whale of a game.
Walking away from this game and scratching your head trying to figure out how it all went wrong is doing nobody any good. There are going to be nights like this in an 82 game schedule and this is as good a time as any to realize that maybe we need to come to the conclusion that this Celtic team may not be the best ever assembled, that they aren't going to win 72+ games and that they may be good enough and great enough to win a title this year but that some of our extremely lofty expectations might need to come to Earth this year.
The Boston Celtics are a very good to reasonably great team. But they have their flaws and they will lose a bunch of games this year and honestly, that's okay. It's what happens in the NBA. The Celtics will get three point happy on occasion and lose. They will play poor defense on occasion and lose. They will get tired and show their advanced age, at least some of their players will, and lose. And they will play a team that comes to play and plays great and they just won't be able to win because of how good that other team is playing and they will lose.
It's okay Celtic fans. It's what happens in the NBA and funny enough, all those things happened simultaneously last night. Phoenix played great, the Celts looked and played tired and old, they played poor defensively, they got a little lazy offensively and the team in green lost. But take consolation in the fact that all those things happened and the Celtics still could have pulled this out real late with some extra great effort and a little Leprechaun Luck.
But they didn't and all they proved is that some of their fans had some unrealistic delusions of grandeur and that now that we are all back on Earth with our feet firmly planted, we can come to realize that, as much as we and and sometimes expect perfection and record breaking execution, that the Celtics are made up of people and like every person, they aren't perfect.
That doesn't mean they aren't capable of being great and winning a championship, just that they just may not be as great as some of us had hoped for or expected.
Topic: The bubble bursts. Celtics air of invincibility gone. (Read 4924 times)