Losses don’t get more painful than the one the Celtics just suffered, squandering a 25-point lead against the Knicks Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. In a season full of second-half collapses, this may have been the Celtics’ worst yet, melting all the way down in a humiliating defeat at the hands of their oldest rival.
After Jayson Tatum (team-high 36 points) tied the game with 1.5 seconds remaining, RJ Barrett broke Boston’s heart with a dagger from 25 feet, sending the Celtics to their second straight loss and fifth in their last seven games.
Adding insult to injury, the Knicks (who the Celtics have the privilege of playing again this weekend) were led by a career-high 41 points from Evan Fournier, whose three highest point totals this year (41, 32 and 32) have all come against his former team. Fournier, who averaged 13.0 points on 44.8-percent shooting in his 16-game stint with Boston last season, tied a franchise record with 10 three-pointers, equaling the mark established by JR Smith in 2014.
It’s been tough sledding of late for the Celtics, who lost in similarly demoralizing fashion only 24 hours earlier, with Jaylen Brown stealing San Antonio’s inbounds pass, only to brick what would have been the game-tying layup as time expired.
The Celtics, as John Mulaney might say, are a team most acquainted with misery, falling apart at the seams under rookie coach Ime Udoka, who, in his short tenure with Boston, has experienced no shortage of locker-room drama with Marcus Smart calling out teammates Brown and Tatum for not sharing the ball, a spat that prompted a tense players-only meeting. The Celtics, through 39 games, have been a decidedly inconsistent team, rarely stringing together four good quarters. Beyond their frustrating lack of execution, particularly late in games, the Celtics may soon be forced to confront the reality that Brown and Tatum, for all their gifts, are an odd pairing that may not stand the test of time.
Even with the NBA expanding its playoff field (the 7-10 seeds are now subject to a “play-in” round), the Celtics, at present, are not a team to fear in the Eastern Conference.
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