Getty
Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens speaks to Jayson Tatum # 0 during the game against the Charlotte Hornets.
Jaylen Brown called for more urgency from his Boston Celtics after an ugly loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder earlier this week. The team reacted somewhat, avenging an earlier 21-point win by tearing off the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday. However, like most of the season, the highs were short-lived.
As of this writing, the Cs are currently 29 points behind the San Antonio Spurs at halftime. Jayson Tatum has scored 24 points. No other Celtic fired more than one shot as the rest of the team scored a total of 24 points.
After tonight, Boston still has eight games to go. You should work for a better sowing in a highly competitive Eastern Conference. Instead, they look more and more like a team whose inconsistencies and mistakes will continue to hold them back in the playoffs.
Richard Jefferson of ESPN, who knows a thing or two about winning at the highest level – he did 2016 as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy – doesn’t see the same pedigree on the Celtics team this season.
« This Celtics team isn’t the same talented Celtics team you’ve seen in the past three or four years « said Jefferson on ESPN’s The Jump. « And you just have to take that away and just understand that I don’t think this year will end nicely for them. »
Jefferson played in the team’s recent appearances against the Hornets and Thunder, why the trust missing in the Celtics.
« When you saw this team even against Charlotte, the Boston Celtics, they were just a step slower and I don’t want to hear who they didn’t have, » he remarked. “Yes, you missed Kemba Walker. Yes, you missed Jayson Tatum. Do you know who they had on the pitch? They had Marcus Smart, they had Jaylen Brown who was an all-star. They had Tristan Thompson. Payton Pritchard had a career high. So you had people contributing to it – Evan Fournier. Maybe they had five of the top six players on the court, at the end of the day they just had no sense of urgency and they were 10 and they just never got it going. «
As we indicated, Friday’s game against Spurs is not going to be quite the Celtics. After a terrible performance in the first half, TD Garden fans let their team hear about it.
Despite the win via Wednesday’s Hornets, the team seem well on their way to their fifth loss in their last seven games – certainly a terrible end to April that looked so promising just a few weeks ago – previously highlighted by a streak of six games.
Suddenly, not only do the Cs look like a team prepared to disappoint playoff time, but with another handful of losses they could very well see their playoff spot slip out of their hands.
Ref: https://heavy.com
