Should Boston be worried? 3 potential explanations for why the Celtics are slumping
Here are a few theories for the once-soaring team's month-long skid headed into the break.
Normally, a 40-19 record wouldn’t be anything to complain about.
Two games back from first place in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics headed into the All-Star break in relatively good standing. However, the revamped team’s play has been suffering, especially compared to their blazing hot start to the season. Currently on a three-game losing streak, the Celtics have lost nine of their last 15 games since their trip to London last month. And it’s (probably) not because they had bad fish and chips.
Here are three potential reasons that explain the team’s recent downturn.
The fall of the J-Team
Just as the young Celtics swingmen stepped up at the beginning of the season, they’ve now come back to Earth. And in the absence of would-be starter Gordon Hayward, the team is particularly feeling the effects.
“We’re in a situation right now where we’re going to expect a lot out of those guys,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said last October of rookie Jayson Tatum and second-year player Jaylen Brown.
For awhile, the Celtics were indeed getting a lot.
In his first 40 games in the league, Tatum averaged 14.1 points a game, shooting an uber-efficient 50.8 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from three. During the same time period, Brown averaged 14.4 points a game on 47.7-percent field-goal shooting and 40.8 percent from deep (marked improvements from his own rookie year).
However, Tatum has since seen a consistent month-by-month decline in his shooting, especially since the New Year. In the 15 games since the Celtics’ trip to London, the 19-year-old is averaging 12.3 points a game and his shooting efficiency is way down to 41.6 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three.
Tatum’s recent struggles have led to widespread speculation that he had hit the NBA’s famed “rookie wall,” the point at which young players accustomed to the shorter college schedule crash during the NBA’s 82-game season (by comparison, the rookie played in all of 29 games last year as a freshman at Duke). Tatum admitted as much in a recent Yahoo Sports interview.
“I mean, we play so many games, it’s all new to me,” he said. “You know, some days are better than others. Some days you’re mentally tired, your legs aren’t as fresh they were a month ago. You know, it’s a long season.”
Brown has also seen a noticeable drop off, even if it hasn’t been as dramatic. In the last 15 games, the 21-year-old is averaging 13.5 points a game on 43.5-percent shooting from the field and 34.7 percent from three.
Most contenders could likely compensate for the expected statistical drop off from their younger players. But without Hayward and leaning so heavily on Tatum and Brown, the rookie-wall effect may be having a disproportionate impact on the Celtics’ offense. During their first 40 games of the year, the otherwise stellar defensive Celtics squad had a middle-of-the-road offensive rating (12th in the league). But in the 19 games since the beginning of 2018, they’ve fallen to 28th, only ahead of the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns.
Missing Marcus
There’s also the issue of the player not on the court for the Celtics, which could be taking a toll on the other end of the floor.
Celtics guard Marcus Smart has missed the team’s last 11 games with an off-court hand injury. In the 48 games before Smart’s injury, the Celtics had a league-best defensive rating of 99.8 points allowed per 100 possessions. In the 11 games since without the 23-year-old, the team’s defensive rating fell to 105.2, which was good for ninth in the NBA. And in their last two games before the All-Star break, the Celtics gave up a combined 250 points.
“We’re a group that we’ve built what we have so far based on the defensive end,” Al Horford told reporters last week after the team gave up a season-high 129 points in a loss to the Clippers. “We’ve taken a big step back on that, it’s obvious, in the past few games.”
Smart himself recently told the Boston Herald that he doesn’t know if his absence was a factor in the Celtics’ defensive struggles, but admitted that it was tough not to be able to contribute from the sidelines.
“It’s tough, but regardless of that, we’ve still got to figure out a way to fix it and win games,” he said. “In the NBA, guys are going to get hurt and guys are going to be missing games, and you’ve just got to find a way to win.”
Capable of guarding anyone from James Harden to Kristaps Porzingis, Smart has proved to be a crucial, versatile role player off the bench for the Celtics in his four seasons with the team. And his absence has forced the team to shuffle their second-unit rotations. As NESN recently chronicled, the Celtics without Smart have been scorched by everyone from All-Stars like Stephen Curry and Victor Oladipo to bench scorers like Jordan Clarkson and Rodney Hood. Referring to the sidelined defensive stopper, Horford told the Providence Journal last week: “We miss him a lot.”
The good news? Smart is expected to return to the Celtics in their first post-break game this Friday in Detroit.
‘Everyone is tired’
Maybe Tatum isn’t the only one hitting a proverbial wall.
No team is safe from the NBA’s grueling schedule, but the Celtics have endured a particularly tough run.
Boston was tied with seven other teams for the most games played this season (59) before the All-Star break, trailing only the Minnesota Timberwolves, who played 61 (no wonder Jimmy Butler sat out the All-Star game). However, the Celtics were also one of the two teams who took the taxing midseason trip to London, and their opponent there, the Philadelphia 76ers, played a league-low 55 games before the All-Star break.
That means a lot of games and a lot of travel without a ton of rest, even by NBA standards.
However, Stevens and others have maintained that the schedule isn’t to blame, attributing recent losses to mental lapses over any sort of physical fatigue.
“That’s part of the NBA,” Stevens told reporters following a loss to Indiana in the second half of a back-to-back earlier this month.
“That’s part of the schedule,” he continued. “You don’t make excuses for that. Everybody has those things. And I’ve seen us play a lot more focused and a lot more crisp when we’re tired, than we did in that first half.”
Still, after the team made it three losses in a row last week against the Clippers, Horford said the break was timely.
“Everybody is tired,” Horford. “I’m not going to use that as an excuse. We need to make sure we continue to work hard and prepare. We need to be better, there’s no way around it. We have to be better.”
