After the Celtics’ 110-97 loss in Toronto, Kristaps Porzingis took questions in a black Celtics cut-off hoodie. He appeared just like the Grim Reaper at a basketball funeral.
It dropped Boston to 7-7 within the final fourteen video games which have included a crushing blow from the 76ers on Christmas Day, a powerful displaying out on the street towards a few of the Western Convention’s greatest, and now disappointing losses to the 20-20 Sacramento Kings and 10-31 Raptors.
“We performed with no spirit, with no persona. It’s only a weak efficiency from us truthfully. We simply performed with no persona,” Porzingis deadpanned after the sport.
“It’s not the tip of the world. Each workforce has its ups and downs. It’s simply tonight, it felt like $#&* proper now. We performed some unhealthy basketball.”
Right here’s CelticsBlog’s Daniel Poarch from the sport recap:
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown struggled to seek out their marks tonight. The star duo mixed to shoot simply 9-of-31 from the sphere, tallying simply 26 factors. Kristaps Porzingis was the most effective participant on the courtroom for Boston tonight, scoring 18 factors and capturing 7-of-11 from the sphere (4-of-5 from three). Payton Pritchard added 20 in an environment friendly evening off the bench, however no different Celtic managed to seek out a lot consistency as a scorer.
To Porzingis’ credit score, he’s discovered a groove for the reason that west coast journey, averaging 19points and 9 rebounds and hitting 45.5% from behind the arc. Sadly, that hasn’t precisely resulted in wins. After a championship season that featured him as the final word complementary participant, it’s been a little bit of a wrestle in his return from offseason surgical procedure. The Celtics are 9-8 with him and a shocking 19-4 with out their beginning heart.
Porzingis assured that the workforce isn’t frightened simply but and that there hasn’t been any rigidity behind the scenes. There was “some extra non-verbal stuff,” however he’s assured issues will change.
“If we have been panicking, I wouldn’t inform you, however we aren’t. We’re in a nasty second proper now, for positive. We have now to be life like and look within the mirror,” Porzingis mentioned.
“We’re not enjoying the most effective basketball. We’re not executing. We’re not doing this this this. There’s a number of issues that we’re not doing properly and we now have to be trustworthy with ourselves. In any other case, we’ll simply hold going like this: get some wins, get some losses, get some wins. After which we’ll develop some unhealthy habits. We simply need to be trustworthy, have a look at ourselves individually, and go from there.”
After this fast journey throughout the border, the Celtics host an Orlando Magic workforce that’s all the time given them hassle and getting wholesome and the Atlanta Hawks who took a recreation off the champs with out Trae Younger earlier within the season. That’s adopted by a four-game journey to California (Warriors, Clippers, Lakers) and Dallas.
Defending the title was by no means going to be simple. Head coach Joe Mazzulla has harassed the significance of discovering other ways to win. The three-point hasn’t been there since December and the protection has slipped. Nevertheless, the entrance workplace introduced again nearly the identical roster that took the league by storm and whereas a few of the numbers have modified, the gamers stay the identical.
“Simply know who these guys are. We have now excessive persona, excessive character folks. No person is pointing fingers,” Porzingis mentioned of his confidence in his teammates. “We all know we’ll get handed this. I do know it. We all know it, however we now have to start out. We have now to start out enjoying higher. We are able to’t simply hold cruising.”
