The Celtics continue to struggle with blowing leads late in the game, and it's clearly become a reason to be concerned.
After blowing a 19-point lead to the Utah Jazz and losing 118-117 Saturday night, the Celtics are now just 7-6 since the All-Star break. At the break, they had the best record in the NBA at 42-17. Now, after Saturday's loss, they're tied with Philadelphia for second in the conference and could potentially end up having home court for only one round of the playoffs.
This is almost the complete opposite of what happened last year, when the Celtics slumped through the first half of the season, but turned it around in the second half and were playing like the best team in the league entering the playoffs.
Despite Saturday's loss, the Celtics did clinch a playoff spot due to the Miami Heat losing to the Chicago Bulls.
The Jazz played great basketball, with every starter scoring double digits. Lauri Markkanen led the Jazz in scoring with 28 points, while Talen Horton-Tucker was second with 19.
The highlight for the Celtics was Grant Williams, who has been inconsistent and struggling to get playing time for the past few weeks. He finished the game with 23 points, shooting 8-of-16 from the field and 7-of-12 from behind the arc. The seven three-pointers made were a season high for Williams.
Jaylen Brown finished with 25 points, shooting 9-of-19 from the field and 4-of-9 from three. Jayson Tatum, on the other hand, struggled, finishing the game with 15 points on 4-of-12 shooting, which is not up to his MVP candidate standards.
The Celtics' two most important bigs, Robert Williams and Al Horford, were ruled out before the game. Both are essential to this team when it comes to both sides of the court. Losing Williams' rebounding and defense and Horford's three-point shooting is going to have a big impact on the outcome of the game.
However, the Celtics were able to build up a 19-point lead by the midway point of the second quarter, and no absence can excuse blowing that lead and losing.
If you look at the shooting percentages, the Celtics played well offensively, shooting 43.1 percent from behind the arc and 47.7 percent from the field overall. The problem was defense and rebound, the two areas they missed Williams and Horford the most. The Celtics finished the game with 40 rebounds compared to Utah's 56.
The Celtics bench stepped up, all having positive plus/minus ratings, with Brogdon being the highest on the team at +11. Every Celtics starter was in the negative, though, with Tatum having the lowest at -13.
With 10 games remaining in the regular season, it is crucial for the Celtics to reorganize as a group and finish the season strong if they want to earn the one-seed back and go into the playoffs with the confidence of a team that has nothing mentally holding them back from winning a championship.
