Kyrie Irving can’t do it all by himself.
The Boston Celtics have been struggling since returning from London, and they dropped their fourth consecutive game Tuesday night in a 108-107 loss to the Lonzo Ball-less Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.
Irving did everything he could at Staples Center, scoring 33 points on 13-for-24 shooting while recording a team-high plus-16 rating.
The star point guard only spent 9 minutes and 36 seconds on the bench, but the Celtics were outscored by 17 points in that time period, leading to the one-point loss.
Boston’s offensive limitations have been on full display during its recent four-game losing streak. Irving has tallied 27, 40 and 33 points in the three games he’s played during that streak, as he missed one game with a knee injury. In fact, only one other player — Marcus Smart, with 22 points Tuesday night — has eclipsed the 20-point mark during the losing streak.
And during the game Irving missed, an 89-80 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, no player was able to score more than 14 points.
The Celtics still are searching for the consistent second scoring option that was supposed to be Gordon Hayward. Al Horford, named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team Tuesday, is an unselfish big man who often chooses to try and get his teammates involved rather than help Irving shoulder the scoring load.
Meanwhile, young stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have been too inconsistent to be relied upon on a night-in, night-out basis. Tatum, for his part, seems to have hit the proverbial rookie wall, as he tallied just four points on 1-for-6 shooting in a rough outing against the Lakers. Tatum is averaging just over 11 points in his last six games.
The inconsistency of Boston’s role players has placed an immense load on Irving’s shoulders, especially when the Celtics’ defense isn’t as dominant as it was early in the season.
The C’s also have been hammered down low in their past four games, giving up 50, 46, 62, and 58 points in the paint, respectively, during the losing streak.
Boston will have to shake off its fourth consecutive loss quickly. The Celtics are back in action Wednesday night against a Los Angeles Clippers club that has steadied itself amidst a multitude of injuries, and the C’s will need to find Irving some help on the offensive end if they plan to snap their losing streak.
Here are more notes from Celtics-Lakers:
— Boston has been getting abused on the glass, and the Lakers, who outrebounded the C’s 51-42, did a lot of their rebound damage from the guard positions. Smart didn’t have any answers after the loss to L.A.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Smart said, per Celtics Wire’s Jared Weiss. “We let those guys bully us on that side. that’s what it came down to. We gotta fix that coming into tomorrow night’s game.
— Horford took a shot to the head near the end of the game but coach Brad Stevens said he should be good to go for Wednesday’s game.
Brad Stevens said Al Horford is OK after getting hit in head. Stevens said he didn’t want to take any chances putting Al back in late.
— Chris Forsberg (@ChrisForsberg_) January 24, 2018
