3 thoughts on the Celtics’s embarrassing Game 2 loss to the Bulls
COMMENTARY
Three thoughts on the Bulls’ 111-97 embarrassment of the Celtics in Game 2 …
1. Have to figure those ubiquitous Forget The Regular Season promos on CSN aren’t having the intended effect. The implication is that the Celtics are not going rest on their laurels, that there will be more memorable achievements to come in the playoffs. Their performance, unfortunately, is making us forget they ever had any laurels in the first place.
For a 53-win, hard-working, top-seeded team that was utterly likable even with some obvious flaws, they sure have turned into an everything-is-wrong nightmare two games into this postseason. It seems like they never get an easy basket, that every one of their shooters is somehow double-teamed by the lengthier Bulls. Conversely, it seems like the Bulls can get a bucket any time they need one, and from anyone, whether it’s Bobby Portis in Game 1, or some secret Euro League superstar playing under the alias of Paul Zipser in Game 2. Robin Lopez isn’t even the best Lopez brother and he’s killing them as a rebounder and shooter. Just imagine what they’d be doing to the Celtics if they still had the mighty Taj Gibson.
I’m not going to declare a comeback impossible – these Celtics are a resilient bunch, and three teams in history have come back to win a series after losing the first two at home – but it sure looks next to impossible now unless pretty much everything changes. When Tommy Heinsohn, who does not bleed red, continually speaks of his admiration for the Bulls’ superior experience and says they’re the more talented team, that’s a tacit acknowledgement that it would be a surprise for this thing to turn around now. The better team is winning, and suddenly, it seems foolish to suggest forgetting the regular season, because it sure looks like that’s where the only good memories of this season will come from.
2. Eight years ago, Rajon Rondo averaged 24.2 points, 10.2 assists, and 10.2 rebounds per game for the Celtics against the Bulls through the first five games of their first-round playoff series. I figured we might see the return of the vaunted Playoff Rondo – the smart and versatile point guard who brought it under the brightest lights – for a game or so during this series against his former team. I did not expect the return to appear to be permanent, and I did not expect him to look as dazzling and in command as he did when he was on the opposite side of the rivalry all those years ago.
Rondo put up a typically brilliant 11-point/9-rebound/14-assist/5-steal stat line last night, and the numbers confirm what your eyes told you: he was in total control of the game. Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade were outstanding in their own right – it turns out Wade still can dunk and also even chucks in a dagger 3-pointer when the mood suits him — but they were Rondo’s backup singers. This was his show.
This might seem remarkable given that Rondo was so deep in the doghouse at one point this season that coach Fred Hoiberg whacked him with a couple of DNP-CDs. But Celtics fans, they know better. An engaged Rondo is often an exceptional Rondo, and it’s much more fun when he’s in playoff mode on your team than against your team. The Celtics had better hope he flips back into enigma mode sometime between now and Game 3.
3. One of the problems popping up with the Celtics right now that isn’t drawing as much attention as their 2,489 more obvious problems – you know, like rebounding and shooting and that stuff — is the Bulls’ exposure of the Boston guards’ mediocre passing ability under duress.
Whenever Thomas is in trouble or double-teamed, his size pretty much necessitates that he throw a risky jump-pass. Smart shows excellent vision from time to time, but his touch as a passer is about as soft as it is as a shooter. And Bradley, as able as he is at so many things, is a player Stevens utilizes properly (limiting his ballhandling, running him off screens) and doesn’t require him to be a playmaker.
It all adds up to a collective, fundamental flaw that the Bulls are aggressively exploiting. I like Bradley and Smart a lot and believe they’re winning players, but maybe Markelle Fultz is on to something.
