The NBA regular season is rapidly coming to a close, but for the Boston Celtics who have 10 games left with a league-best 57-15 record plus a secured No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, there's still a valuable opportunity in place.
Boston rolled into Atlanta with a nine-game win streak, which ended alarmingly with the Celtics collapsing after taking a 30-point lead over the Trae Young-less Hawks. Monday night's matchup kicked off on-brand with the bar the Celtics have set as head coach Joe Mazzulla's shorthanded starting lineup scored 44 points in the first quarter but followed up by shooting 1-of-15 from three in a 44-point second half to fall 120-118 to a lesser opponent.
No, that's no reason to smash the panic button. Boston entered the night winners in 20 of its previous 23 games and throughout nine straight wins, not once did the Celtics play a healthy starting five. Jrue Holiday and Derrick White -- the go-to backcourt -- didn't play in Atlanta, which removed the backbone of Boston's new-look and more stable offense. Mazzulla inserted Sam Hauser and Al Horford in the lineup, starting the game without a point guard to work alongside Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis.
That left a clear (and bold) impact in crunch time when the Celtics watched their 30-point second-quarter lead dip to an 18-point advantage at halftime.
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"We just took our foot off the gas and they just got confidence, and at that point, it’s tough to beat anybody when they got it rolling," Brown said postgame, per NBC Sports Boston. "… We've had the right approach. Tonight wasn't the best example of that. We kind of took our hands off the steering wheel a little bit. And no matter if we up 30 (points) or we down five, we gotta have the same approach and the same mindset."
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As the night quickly shifted from a possible early clock-out for Tatum and Brown into a thrilling back-and-forth exchange, Boston desperately searched for the play to close the door on the Hawks. And with the chance to bring that door closer to life, the Celtics crumbled like a house of cards.
Brown dribbled the ball up the floor as the score stood at 117-116 in Atlanta's favor, settling for a highly contested three -- and missed. In dire need of a defensive stop the following possession, Hawks center Clint Capela recovered an offensive rebound over Brown, Horford and Payton Pritchard, and kicked the ball out to De'Andre Hunter, who drained the nail-in-a-coffin three.
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No urgency, no killer instinct and a significant lack of basketball IQ applied with an even greater talent advantage in Boston's favor.
"It's the NBA. These kinds of things happen, of course," Porzingis claimed, per NBC Sports Boston. "We just don't wanna make this a habit, and it hasn't been a habit for us. We slipped one game and we did relax for a little bit, and we paid the price. ... Maybe we need to sometimes have a little bit more urgency."
With 10 games before transitioning into playoff mode, there's no room for those meltdowns, especially not against a Hawks team that's barely defended its home floor (18-17) as the No. 9 seed.
The Celtics have a few key matchups left that will allow the team to choose whether to finish the season strong or carry its cruise mode momentum into Round 1. Here are the key opponents remaining on schedule:
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-- Atlanta Hawks (for one last time, again), Thursday night
-- Oklahoma City Thunder (50-21), April 3
-- Milwaukee Bucks (46-26), April 9
-- New York Knicks (43-28), April 11
Three of those teams are legitimate contenders with two being possible playoff foes that'll stand in Boston's way from coming out of the East. Therefore, the most appropriate way to respond to Monday night's hiccup would be to go on one final red-hot run of on-brand 2023-24 Celtics basketball to treat the final 10 games as if the No. 1 seed was never secured. Considering Boston hasn't lost more than twice consecutively all season long, the track record sits in favor of the Celtics.
A team that's made no excuses, has applied the demanded sacrifice necessary to flourish, and is due for redemption at the biggest stage can easily clean up its latest mess. But it'll have to start right where it left off, in Atlanta.
Featured image via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
