But the bottom line is this: The Boston Celtics are plain mailing it in.
It's hard to believe a championship-caliber team with veterans like Paul Pierce and Ray Allen would lose for lack of effort, but check out these lines: Over the past four games (three of which resulted in Boston losses), the Celtics have been outscored in the second half 215-165.
In other words, they’re jumping to leads early, then collapsing in the third and fourth quarters. That can’t be explained away by injuries to KG, Marquis Daniels and Rasheed Wallace — if the Celts can win without them in the first half, they should be able to do the same in the second.
“We’ve won games without Kevin,” Pierce said after Monday night’s embarrassing loss to Dallas at the TD Garden. “That’s not an excuse. We feel like we should win in our building.”
And they haven’t at all. The Celtics, who have lost seven of their last 11 overall, have dropped three straight in Boston, the longest such losing streak in two years. The point differential in those defeats? An average of 9.3 points.
Again, even without Garnett, that type of misery spells a lack of hustle.
“They’re just more physical than us,” Doc Rivers said of Dallas after the third quarter on Monday.
The Mavericks — the team whose leader is Dirk Nowitzki — more physical than the smash-mouth Celtics? If that’s the case, you’ve got troubles.
But it’s exactly what’s happening. In their last three losses, the C’s have been outworked on the offensive glass 28-17 and have conceded 40 fast-break points; telltale signs that they’re not crashing the boards or getting back up the floor on defense.
“I thought we came out relaxed, and we just thought Dallas would go away,” Rivers said after the loss on Monday, in which the Mavs scored 58 second-half points to Boston’s 40. “[In the] second half, I thought our defense was horrendous. I didn’t think we got back at all on defense. They had numbers every single time. We had our guards crashing the glass trying to get offensive glass, bigs complaining to refs — they beat us down the floor and they scored.”
Yes, the loss of KG hurts, and it’ll no doubt help to have him back in the lineup Friday against a good Portland team.
But the Celtics need much more than Garnett to pull themselves back into the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference (they’re 2 1/2 games behind Cleveland entering Tuesday night's action). They need a change in attitude — back to the one that made them the top team in the first place.
