Boston Celtics blow 30 point lead, fail down the stretch, in loss to Atlanta Hawks

Boston Celtics blow 30 point lead, fail down the stretch, in loss to Atlanta Hawks

I don’t know how many times we’re going to say no lead is safe in the NBA before the Celtics realize that no lead is safe in the NBA plus they play way too slow I’m gonna talk about it right now on the lockdown Celtics podcast thanks to Blockbuster Brad it’s

Holiday season drop Drew in the mix and three from KP no we not on the next watching competition like Al on Yannis juice and big de still be to f a going up in the ra watching game locked on after on the break like a TI

From d on the breakdown John on the mic documenting domination m p back B all SE Nation J to Start hey there welcome back to the lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the lockdown podcast Network where it’s your team every day and I got you covered every single day Monday through Friday with a free fresh podcast that’s dropped directly to your device even on nights like this where the Celtics just

Kicked away a 30-point lead but make sure you subscribe because I’ll be talking about that I talk about games they play in the weekends in bonus podcast so plenty to talk about here on the lockdown Celtics podcast subscribe get into the YouTube page uh get into

The comment section let me know what you think today the Celtics I’m talking about a 120 to 118 loss to the Atlanta Hawks Today’s Show is brought to you by prize picks the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to prize pick.com lockdown NBA

Use the code lockdown NBA all lowercase for first deposit match up to $100 um Celtics LED this one by 30 at one point was 68- 38 in the second quarter four minutes to go four and change to go 4 423 I want to say 68 to 38 the Celtics looked amazing

The Hawks looked awful they looked horrible it was one of the biggest disparities between the two teams that I’ve seen in an NBA game in a long time so it made sense at that point to say this game’s over right it felt like that game was over it didn’t look like

Atlanta had anything left it didn’t think I say anything left and they didn’t have anything to begin with there was no reason to believe that the Hawks would figure this out and yet they did because no lead is safe in the NBA the ESPN just did a whole thing on 20 Le 20o

Leads and how they it’s like 50 like in the in the mid-50s now of teams that were up by 20 and the league goes away did I introduce myself by the way for those of you who don’t know I’m John Alice uh former player Once Upon a Time

Now I cover the Celtics for Boston Sports Journal you do all that did I do all that stuff did I forget did I blow it like the Celtics did anyway if if a fourth quarter lead a 20-point lead is not safe if a lead going into the fourth quarter up 20 is not

Safe why would a 30-point lead in the second quarter be safe if 12 minutes is enough time for 20 points to be erased why wouldn’t 20 almost 29 minutes be enough time for 30 points to be erased doesn’t make any sense why would a team say oh we’ve got this

And never get it back like I understand 68 to 38 that you say ah we got it no problem but why can’t you get it back why can’t the Celtics get it back this is the most confounding thing the Hawks got hot and I said before the game I wrote it on Boston

Sports journal in my preview the Hawks are a bad defensive team that can hit a ton of shots and if you’re not careful it could be a 105 to 100 score after three and basically saying the Hawks are capable of putting up 100 points in three quarters and that’s what

They did they put up 98 points in quarters 2 three and four they’re completely capable of doing that so shout out to the Hawks for hitting a bunch of shots I mean they’re they had to make the shots in order to complete this comeback they shot 18

Of 36 so 50% from three and over the course of the second half Boston made one three-pointer they were one of 15 in the second half the Hawks were 11 of 19 so this is what the Hawks are capable of doing they have B bdon bogdanovich who

Can hit shots they have dejonte Murray who’s a good player they have DeAndre Hunter he can get hot this kid Cree gets hot they have guys on the team capable of hitting three-pointers so okay they they hit a few three-pointers the Celtics were messing around with the lead it it started early

In the second quarter Jason Tatum I remarked on Twitter that the Celtics scored and at that point it was like a joke I was making a joke at that time the Celtics scored they ran a whole offensive set they ended up getting a Luke cornette layup and then the entire

Time watching on TV I didn’t see Jason Tatum in the frame for a single second of it he just kind of hung around way up by the logo and the Celtics ran four on five and they still scored that’s how easily things were going for them but the Celtics relaxed they got up

68 to 38 okay so the Hawks made a run they cut it to 18 heading into the half to me that felt like Joe moula at halftime get the guys together be like hey look man you guys see what happens here when you take your

Foot off the gas and you you give them life so you got to come out here at the beginning of the third quarter and take away their life you got to take it away so 18 we got to get this thing back up to 30 now I know he doesn’t say that

Stuff he doesn’t think that way but there had to be some sort of emphasis like okay guys we understand what happened here look at how we did well in the first quarter 44 to 22 first quarter double up look how well we played and we succeeded look what we did in the second

Quarter when we started to give up that run to to lose 12 points off the lead look what we did wrong okay third quarter got to come out strong and do the things that we’re doing in the first quarter they didn’t do it that run extended to a 30 to um 30-7

Run so all of a sudden it was a single digit game and once once you get to that point it’s hard to shut that water off but the Celtics had another chance they made another run third quarter get it up to 11 Al Horford looks over at the Hawks

Bench says you guys need a timeout they called a timeout and the Hawks responded the Celtics didn’t turn around and pile it back on they relaxed again and again credit to the Hawks the Hawks played well and the Celtics couldn’t didn’t get it back but the Celtics had multiple opportunities down the stretch

Once again now listen it’s obviously frustrating for them to lose but the the loss doesn’t matter in and of itself I am not upset at the fact that I’m not said if they they blew the lead it’s it is like guys come on be serious but okay it happens you blew a

Lead it happens like I said at the top you if if a 20-point lead is not safe in the fourth quarter then a 30-point lead at you know in the second quarter is definitely not safe you got to recognize that okay fine it happens it happens not a big deal the Celtics by

The way have already clinched the East so they didn’t even need to to win to clinch the East it’s clinched it’s done they are the number one seed you’d like to wrap up the NBA overall seed but whatever it’s gonna happen at some point this isn’t uh oh my God they’re

Not going to win a championship because of this no I don’t care about that I don’t care that they lost I don’t really care that they blew a 30-point lead what I care about is that the fourth quarter was so brutally slow that the Celtics didn’t they got

Away from the stuff that worked once again I’ve got stats to show how the Celtics are taking this playing slow to extremes and this is the most troubling part about this loss it’s the only really troubling part about this loss is how slow they play and how they stop

Giving themselves the best chance to win in these close games games I’ll talk about that in just a second Today’s Show is brought to you by prize pick it’s the number one fantasy sports app over three million members on that app playing daily fantasy sports and you don’t play against a single one

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So go check it out priz picks.com lockdown NBA prize picks pick more pick less it’s that easy thank you for making lockon Celtics your first listen every day go check out lock on sports today free 247 sports streaming Channel forget Fox Sports forget ESPN and all the yelling in fake

Arguments turn on lockdown sports today 247 on YouTube or it’s on the free Amazon Fire TV channels app it’s part of the lockdown podcast Network it’s your team every day so I think the Celtics biggest problem here is that they play so damn slow at the end of

Games and I’ve talked about this in the podcast before they play so slow that they’re they’re killing their chances we know that the Celtics and what’s frustrating about this team is this is when they lose this is how they lose and it’s outwire stuff so it’s not

It really is not this is not a podcast it’s like oh I don’t know I don’t know what these guys have it I don’t know if they’ve got it in them no they do they do but they have to fix this one thing it’s like the last thing that you have

To fix they play so slow in fourth quarters so Jason Tatum with eight and a half to go in the game the Hawks just took a lead right it’s like 10 102 101 and he’s walking the ball up the floor no pressure no resistance he’s just walking the ball up the floor and

He’s going so slow that he just takes an 8C violation and he started to argue it and he he was arguing it and it’s very clear it’s clear as day this it showed 16 15 and you weren’t even over a half court yet it was the most it triggered something in me

Because it’s like how can you the the team they just took a one-point lead it’s now you’re losing it’s eight and a half to go what are you slowing the game down for at this point run your offense bring the ball up the floor challenge them play with some Pace

Make a bad defensive team make bad defensive decisions but no he walks the ball up the floor and takes an 8sec violation with no pressure it blew my mind absolutely blew my mind because it shows that they don’t understand what their last remaining huge problem really is they they will say after the

Game we we have to grab more rebounds absolutely the offensive rebounds down the stretch killers and by the way DeAndre Hunters three-pointer up one with 11 seconds to go was one of the dumbest decisions you could make on a b basketball court the fact that it went

In erases what what should be a lot of scorn and ridicule for DeAndre Hunter he got lucky here that was a bad decision but it worked because it went in but anyway the offensive yes should they rebound more yeah should they defend they gave up 98 points over the

Last three quarters yeah you got to defend better after the game Joe moula and everybody else will talk about the margins which is Absol absolutely true and this is this is where I think there there’s a problem they are accurate in saying we got to be better at the margins we got

The turnovers live ball turnovers they’re points off of turnovers clean this up clean that up clean that up clean that up and all of a sudden you know you’re not even in this situation and that’s true that’s all true and you can sit there and focus on clean this up

Clean that up clean that up clean that up four things and the margins and yeah that that 10o swing 15 Point swing and you win this game and it’s pretty easy but that’s not the only thing they should be focusing on because they they will be in this situation again and they

Will have to figure out a way to close out a tight game again and maybe it’ll be winning all of the margins and still being in a tight game what they cannot do I’m begging them pleading with the Celtics please understand that you play to slow down the stretch the numbers tell us

That you play too slow down the stretch okay first quarter they put up a a a graphic in the Pistons game Celtics first quarter points defensive field goal percent three-point field goal scoring marging offensive rating defensive rating net rating effective field goal percentage first first first first first first first they’re the best

First quarter team in history the Celtics in the in the uh first quarter play at a pace that’s 102.3 that is the approximation of how many possessions playing with at that pace that they’re playing their Pace number of 102.3 is the number of possessions they would make they would have over 48

Minutes in the fourth quarter now that’s a first quarter number in the fourth quarter that drops to 93.2 they lose 93.9 two I’m sorry so we’ll say 94 so it drops by eight we’ll round up okay first quarter numbers the second best offense in the league Boston’s the best second best offense in

The league Pacers theirs drops from 10 4.2 to 10 100.2 basically so there’s drops by four the Bucks are the third best offense in the league they go from 103.24300 so the Celtics Dro by eight the pace for the top offenses in the league drops by about four so that’s that’s the natural

Slow down every fourth quarter slows down some and offenses the pace generally drops around three or four the Celtics drop by eight they they go twice as slow they drop by twice as much however you want to characterize it they go the the gap between their bests in

The first quarter and their slowest in the fourth quarter is twice as big as all the other big-time offenses in the league that’s not sustain you cannot do that because you get too far away from what you’re doing and by the way the top six fourth quarter off def es bucks who

I mentioned Clippers Pacers Thunder bulls and then the Celtics and the Bulls Pace drops by two so all of these teams that are good offenses that don’t wander too far away from what they normally are they are good fourth quarter offenses as well the Celtics still good still sixth but you

Go from one to six all these other teams are like 2 three four five and they still hang around 2 three four five Boston goes from here to down here they play too slow it bogs things down you take away your options there was no Derek white there was no Drew

Holiday so that hinders things for sure however it doesn’t matter who they have on the floor it doesn’t matter even if Tatum or brown take all of the shots none of that stuff matters as long as they play with Pace that gives you they gives them the offensive options that gives them the

Opportunity to bend and break a defense when you pass and move and cut and Screen you get baskets we’ve seen it I’ve talked about this a dozen times on this podcast because in the dozen of losses uh or so that they’ve had they this has been the story please Boston Celtics understand

That yeah I get it that you’re going to play slower but you’re grinding these games to a halt and and you’re still turning the ball over and you’re just watching Tatum and and Jaylen ISO and it’s not working move the ball move yourselves run some offense and you’ll be

Fine some of this was just make Miss stuff we’ll talk about that we’ll talk about some other players here in just a second Today’s Show is brought to you by better help now better help can help you uh get past some things get you some get

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Check out lockdown NBA I host on Wednesdays with Jake Madison of lockdown pelicans and we got rotating hosts all week it’s a great show great to cover the great way to cover the league get caught up on all the big stories there on locked on NBA come join me we’ll talk about the

Whole league so look and I want to reiterate here as I’m as I’m talking about this stuff this is like the last thing that the Celtics need to get past to basically lock this up to make me feel like 100% sure that they are gonna win this

Championship and I feel like 99% sure that they’re going to win this Championship but it’s this late game stuff it’s it’s the fact that they slow it down so much and that they get away from what they normally do so much that that’s where I’m I’m this whole thing is

Because you’ll notice I’m not really breaking down like the strategy of the game or anything like that doesn’t it doesn’t matter that doesn’t matter the Celtics have clinched uh it was interesting that they went big they started out and they went big with Tatum and brown and Hower with porzingis and

Horford interesting lineup that could be a lineup that they go to that could be they could have started with what would be a closing lineup right like if you aren’t if if if the other team is too big for uh for you know maybe you don’t want to throw

Derek white out there against a bigger guard I don’t know what the matchup would be but let’s just say you can go with this big lineup if you want to go super big this is an option right if if holiday sprains an ankle or something like that there there’s all of these

Different possibilities with lineups and stuff so this could be a lineup that you see at some point in a fourth quarter you know you got length defensively and it looked looked pretty good it the puts the ball in Tatum’s hand a ton which I I’m on record of saying I don’t want it

In his hands that much to start possessions I would love to see more of these late game possessions and again no white no holiday so I’m not getting I’m not getting too worked up about the fourth quarter execution the plays specifically that they ran although I do

Want to see like okay so it starts the ball starts in Tatum’s hands why couldn’t they have gone to porzingis where was porzingis down the stretch like that’s you got porzingis for a reason right Brad Stevens brought him in so he can post up a bunch in the fourth

Quarter so when it’s like dribble dribble dribble dribble and it’s not going anywhere well where’s porzingis dump it into him why can’t he finish something down you know on on the post where was he where was that so I mean it’s those little things but the B big lineup was was interesting

And and who knows when we’ll see that again if we’ll see that again but it’s an opportunity to to throw those experimental lineups out there and maybe you see something that you like I mean obviously the first quarter worked well I’m not going to get too worked up about

That either because it was against the Hawks and when the Hawks were playing so bad in the first quarter that honestly when it when it got to 68 38 I was sitting there saying what the hell am I going to talk about what the hell am I

Going to write about because this is like there at that point there was literally nothing to TI this was getting way out of hand so I guess in a weird way thanks Celtics for basically a meaningless loss that turns into something meaningful because of that that slowdown thing but

Uh and I I can write off a lot of this as just they they let the Hawks get so hot from three that when you get outscored in the fourth quarter or in the second half by 30 from the three-point line the Celtics shot 46 shots they made 20 the Hawks

Made 23 of 40 so it wasn’t that big a difference there’s only a four free throw difference so it it shouldn’t have been uh a huge disparity but the the Celtics got outscored by um what was it they they got outscored by 40 uh yeah by 20 because of

The three-point disparity so the Celtics were one of 15 in the in the second half there’s a little bit of make Miss happening there for sure so I’m not gonna again this so I’m not I’m not getting too worked up about it uh but there there are certainly things

They could have done better H good to see Jaden spring and out Springer out there I thought he had an important contribution defensively you could see exactly what he is capable of doing defensively and I think that’s what you see in in in him there

Is is what Brad saw in him and you know maybe in a couple years whatever the uh Drew holiday extension ends up being if it’s a two-year thing or a three-year thing somewhere towards the end of that Springer has the possibility of coming in and kind of sliding into that role to

Some degree I mean he’s not he’s not going to be as good as as holiday but can he make up uh some of the shooting can he get to the can he get his jump shot down over the over the next two three years and and become a three and D

Type of guy the D is there the the defense is there he is a an NBA level Defender and if he can you know if he gets that reputation uh builds that reputation some of the Ticky Tac files that he gets uh th those will go

Away um overall all like aside from that fourth quarter just things sliding to into molasses I thought Tatum and brown did a good job earlier in the game I mean they scored they combined for 71 points uh I thought Jaylen had hit some big shots in the fourth

Quarter uh overall I thought they played okay it’s just down the stretch they played like you know it just I’m not gonna I’m not even G to rehash it um pton Pritchard in the third quarter was really good I thought he was going to save the game honestly I thought he

Saved the game in the third quarter and I the sels just could never build on what he was doing Sam Hower had a rough shooting night two of 10 I had done a whole big breakdown on Boston Sports Journal about how he gets his three-pointers and all of that stuff

And of course if I had believed in jinxes if I believe in jinxes uh I might have thought like geez like that kid but uh no he just had a bad shooting night uh tough night for him uh what else happened O’Shea brassette I if he had caught that putback had a putback

Attempt in the second quarter maybe third quarter um third quarter I think where oh my God he jumped like he would have I think he jumped like over three people that would have been the best dunk we’ve seen all like if he had finished that dunk it would have been

Challenging for dunk of the year um that’s that’s basically it that’s basically it from this game I I don’t know if the Celtics are going to get this I don’t know if they’re going to figure out their fourth quarter thing because if they if they don’t understand

That they play too slow then that’s just going to be a problem if they just think this is how you’re supposed to play and they don’t change that then then we will just have to get used to being worried in these close games uh it’s the answer

For Boston might just end up being don’t play close games like that’s just gonna have to be where this lands if they don’t fix the the pace of play thing because if they can’t if they slow it down so much that they get so far away from what they do then that that’s

Just it’s going to be hard to win those games so the answer might just have to be don’t don’t get down or don’t don’t be within five six points in the fourth quarter just keep it to like eight or 10 if you can clean up those margins and

Just win by eight or 10 then like that’s that that’s gonna be how you win a championship I would prefer that they also figure out how to win these two-point games but they’re it’s I’m starting to lose a little bit of faith in their ability to

Diagnose the pace of play as the primary issue so hopefully that changes it’s got to change it’s got to change so we’ll see they they’ll they’ll smoke Atlanta on Thursday that’s going to be a bloodbath like they they might come out and be like you know what we

Blew it we understand Tatum afterwards said we effed up this game they’ll come out they’ll they’ll put up another 30-point lead in the first half and they’ll double it and have their biggest win of the season and we’re all going to forget we’re all going to forget that

Loss it’s not going to matter in the grand scheme of things I know it’s not going to matter in the grand scheme of things not the loss anyway because they’ll whip off another seven game winning streak and that’s GNA be it like that it doesn’t matter but the pace of

Play does the pace of play does that’s the one thing from this game that matters the pace of play they have to play with good Pace in the fourth quarter I’m repeating myself over and over and over again because they keep repeating that one mistake I’ll be here all

Week uh I will be podcasting later in the week from New Orleans because I never miss a trip to down down to New Orleans so I’ll be going down there to watch the Celtics in New Orleans that is going to be a fun game obviously podcasts throughout the week until then

So I will be podcasting every day this week except for Friday night because they are off on Friday so that’s going to be my one podcast over two weeks I’m doing 13 in 14 days that’s going to be my one day off so and I’m gonna be in

New Orleans for it so if I survive that Friday I’ll be back for you on that Saturday so make sure you’re subscribed wherever you get your podcast watch the show on YouTube get into the comments section let me know what you think am I right am I wrong and then share the

Podcast spread the word tell your friends that they should be listening to and watching the lockdown Celtic podcast here in the lockdown podcast Network it’s your team every day

Everything was looking great through about 18 minutes or so as the Celtics were building a 30-point lead in Atlanta, but then the Celtics completely got bored, the Hawks started hitting a bunch of 3-pointers, and Boston played terrible, slow basketball. The result was a blown lead and a streak-snapping loss in Atlanta. John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal explains that the loss itself doesn’t mean much at all, but the way they lost does because it’s the same stuff over and over again.

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Locked On Celtics is a daily Boston Celtics podcast by Boston Sports Journal beat writer John Karalis. It’s an inside look at the C’s from a former professional basketball player who is at practices & games.

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