Obviously not all losses are created the same.
Sometimes you just get beat by a better team or one that shoots the proverbial lights out.
Others, you fight the good fight but just come up a little short but for a bad bounce the basketball or two.
Then there are losses like the Celtics’ Game 5 failing Monday night at the Chase Center in San Francisco when you play to lose and you very much get what you deserve in the form of a 104-94 defeat to give Golden State a 3-2 series advantage.
On a night when Warriors superstar Steph Curry – who some curiously wanted to hand the Finals MVP trophy to after Game 4, regardless of how the remaining three games played out – scored a mere 16 points and failed to hit a three for the first time in his Hall of Fame postseason career, Boston still seemed ill-prepared and poorly equipped for the moment.
First, there were the ugly turnovers that have become characteristic of Boston’s losses this postseason, 18 in all. Thirteen of those came from the Celtics’ supposed star-studded trio of Jayson Tatum (4), Jaylen Brown (5) and Marcus Smart (4).
It was the same old ugly, sloppy story leading to easy points for the Warriors.
“Another game with too many turnovers. It cost us,” Brown said. “Offensively, we got to be better. I got to be better.”
Then came the ugly free-throw shooting. As a team competing for a championship at the highest level, supposedly one of the two best in basketball, Boston shot just 68-percent from the free-throw line, struggles “led” by scoring leader Tatum missing four of his six attempts.
Oh, and while making plenty of physical mistakes by turning the basketball over and missing shots – beyond the struggles from the foul line Boston hit just 34-percent from three, thanks to an 0-for-12 start as a team that saw Brown go 0-for-5 on the night from beyond the arc – Boston added in some mental shortcomings by allowing infuriating officiating to get the worst of them.
Head coach Ime Udoka and Marcus Smart both got hit with technical fouls, but were far from the only guys in green whining their way through the losing effort.
“I think it was a little bit of that throughout the game.
Probably something we shouldn't do as much and we all did too much,” Udoka acknowledged afterwards, stating the obvious.
It was about as ugly as a championship-level team could play and maybe most frustrating was that with Curry’s poor shooting and Boston putting together a huge third-quarter comeback, the visitors were very much in the game heading into the fourth quarter.
But when you play as poorly as the Celtics did Monday night, you simply don’t deserve to win. And a Celtics team that had built its reputation on bouncing back and resiliency, lost consecutive games for the first time this postseason.
“Poor start overall. That's hard to explain that, why that is. But we got back in. Turnovers, missed free throws, some of the things obviously, a little bit talking to the refs too much didn't help us in the fourth,” Udoka said, again honestly breaking down his team’s obvious failings.
And if you continue to play that way – certainly in regards to the turnovers and missed free throws – you don’t deserve to win a game never mind an NBA title.
The NBA Finals continue in Game 6 Thursday night at TD Garden in Boston, the home team needing a win to extend the series as Golden State looks to secure another title in the Curry era.
“The message to the guys is to be confident going home, get your rest, let's get ready to bring it back (to Golden State for Game 7),” Udoka concluded.
Hey, at least they probably can’t play much worse than they did in Game 5!
“It's win or go home at this point,” Brown said. “We worked incredibly hard all season to put ourselves in this position. I still feel like we have so much more better basketball to play that we haven't played in the last two games. I'm hoping that the next two games we play Celtic basketball and put our best foot forward like I know we can. I know the city is going to be behind us. It's going to be a big Game 6. Looking forward to it.”
