BOSTON — Celtics players threw around words like “embarrassing” and “unacceptable” after Wednesday night’s loss to the Miami Heat.
Point guard Isaiah Thomas, for one, called the 93-86 defeat one of the worst games of basketball he’s ever played.
But the most hard-hitting, self-critical take on the the Celtics’ showing came from forward Jae Crowder.
“Sickening,” Crowder said. “It’s sickening, man. I don’t know what to say about it. We didn’t show up.”
In what amounted to a playoff game for both teams, the Heat brutalized the Celtics on their home floor for the better part of 36 minutes. Miami led by seven points after the first quarter, 17 after the second and 20 after the third before Boston finally managed to make a game of it with a fourth-quarter rally.
“Us being at home, playing for something in front of our home crowd, and we don’t show up for three quarters,” lamented Crowder, who led all Celtics scorers with 16 points. “I don’t understand it.”
The Celtics picked the worst possible time to lay an egg. A win over a Heat team that was missing three of its best players in Dwyane Wade, Hassan Whiteside and Chris Andersen would have vaulted Boston into a tie for seventh place in the logjam that is the Eastern Conference playoff race.
Boston instead sits in eighth by virtue of a tiebreaker with the Indiana Pacers, with the Charlotte Hornets and Brooklyn Nets both trailing by just one half-game.
“We’ve just got to know what’s at stake as a unit,” Crowder said. In this game right now, we’re playing for something. If that doesn’t motivate you to come out and be prepared and be ready to go, I don’t know what will fire you to do that. But we’re playing for something — that’s all I’ve got to say. If you love this game and you love to play for something, you have to strap them up and be ready to play.”
To Crowder, it’s a matter of effort. The Celtics had it in the fourth — when a unit largely made up of bench players outscored the Heat 24-11 and whittled a 22-point deficit down to five — but 12 strong minutes are not nearly enough to win a basketball game.
That turns the discussion toward accountability, and an argument Crowder has raised more than once since landing in Boston in December. On a team like the Celtics without a proven core of veteran leadership, the 24-year-old has said, each player must be responsible for taking his teammates to task.
“Of course, we don’t have that many older guys like Gerald (Wallace) and Brandon Bass, but five guys are on the court,” Crowder said Wednesday. “If you’re one of those guys on the court and you see something, I don’t understand why wouldn’t you be vocal and try to get it going. I’m not worried about age or anything like that. We’re all on the court. We’re fighting.
“If you see something and you want to make a statement, make a statement. It’s as simple as that.”
Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
