Jrue Holiday takes accountability for late-game miscues Celtics’ collapse against the Hawks
"I think this game is on me and just execution on my part has to be better," Holiday said.
Jrue Holiday made a pair of mistakes during the fourth quarter of Saturday’s loss to Atlanta that were quite unlike the way he usually plays.
Holiday, who is in his 16th NBA season, is usually calm under pressure and makes smart decisions. At the end of regulation, his decision making helped fuel the Celtics’ spiral that allowed the Hawks to tie the game and send it into overtime.
The veteran guard caught a long pass from Jayson Tatum in the paint, and it looked like he had an opportunity for a layup. Instead, Holiday dribbled the ball out and threw an errant pass toward Jaylen Brown. The ball hit one of Brown’s hands and bounced out of bounds.
“Get it to JB,” Holiday said of his intentions on the play. “It was a bad pass. Pretty much it was that simple. Bad pass on my part.”
The Celtics were up three at the time, and if Holiday scored it would have pushed the lead to five with 13.9 seconds left in the game.
“Unless it goes well, you’re always going to second-guess no matter what it was,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “There was a play, actually, last year at Memphis where he first got here and we were looking at our late-game execution and he went in to go try and score in that situation and we ended up losing … he made the best decision possible that he thought at the time and we just didn’t execute.”
Later on in the quarter, Holiday fouled Hawks star Trae Young and put him on the free-throw line. Young swished the free-throws and tied the game.
“Nah, that wasn’t an intentional foul,” Holiday said. “Honestly, just trying to keep him from going to the basket. It wasn’t on purpose.”
Holiday took accountability for his miscues and said that the blame for the loss belongs to him. The Celtics are 8-8 over their last 16 games as a troubling stretch for the defending champions continues.
Late game execution has been just one of several issues lately. However, it was the primary one that sank the Celtics on Saturday, Holiday said.
“Today, it was just execution. I think we had the game won,” Holiday said. “I’ve got to make some better plays. Maybe make a better pass to JB or hold onto the ball, get free-throws, it’s a different situation. And I fouled Trae, and we were still up two, so I think this game is on me and just execution on my part has to be better.”
There were other issues on Saturday night as well. Jayson Tatum missed a key free-throw. Jaylen Brown had a team-high four turnovers. Sam Hauser went 0-for-7 from the field.
Derrick White said Holiday doesn’t deserve all of the blame.
“It’s never on one guy,” White said. “He does so much different stuff. I mean, he forced the turnover, basically, before that. So it’s never on one guy, it’s not on Jrue. There’s a lot of stuff I could have done better, and so we just got to just stick together as a team and get through this together.”
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