The Celtics Are on the Brink of Elimination After Folding like a Cheap Suit in the 4th Quarter6/13/2022 
That scoreboard really says it all.
The Boston Celtics picked almost the worst possible time to have their first losing streak since late March, as they've now dropped two straight to fall behind 3 games to 2 in the 2022 NBA Finals: Presented by YoutubeTV.
I'm so fucking mad right now because this team is killing themselves. It'd be one thing if Steph had another monster game, but Golden State was extremely beatable tonight. They showed that by not blowing out the Celtics early when they had a chance and surrendering the league for a solid chuck in the 3rd quarter. They let 'em hang around and for a brief moment it looked like the C's took that next step towards a title. This was their chance to steal another game in San Fran. Steph Curry didn't hit a 3 for the first time since the fucking Nixon administration, ending a litany of records. 
The Warriors won this game, and credit to them for keeping their composure and exuding the will of a champion, but the C's did themselves no fucking favors with sloppy, piece of shit basketball. Tatum had FOUR missed free throws. The C's went 21-31 from the line; four of those makes came from scrubs in garbage time. Jaylen was terrible (especially early), and the bench was nonexistent. You'll never believe this, but turnovers killed the C's once again, as tonight was all about 18 GIVEAWAYS. I don't have sabermetrics to back it up, but most felt unforced and careless.
This is basically another way of spelling out the start to this blog, but this sequence tells the whole story.
After it looked like the C's would go into the quarter with the lead, Jordon Poole hit a deeeep three to give the Warriors a lead they'd never relinquish.
The officiating did the Celtics no favors tonight.
But it's hard to blame the officiating when you turn the ball over 18 times and miss 10 free throws. It just fucking sucks because this was a very winnable game and when the C's needed to show that championship heart, they fucking collapsed. Sure, it was cool to see them bang like eight straight threes after an arctic start behind the arc, but that doesn't mean shit when you come out flat against a Golden State team playing their B- game.
The no back-to-back losses narrative is dead, and soon the 2021-22 Boston Celtics will be too if they don't figure it the fuck out. Maybe they're still too young, but they've shown they can hang with GSW throughout this series. It's been an incredible run, but it's so frustrating to see this team beat itself and be soft AF. If the Warriors were indeed better, you could live with it. But the C's have shown glimpses of being the superior team, but GSW runs circles around them in mental toughness and heart, which matters tenfold in the Finals. If the Warriors were on the other side of that Jordon Poole three to close the quarter, they would've shook it off and kept their cool. That lapse defensively to give up that look and surrender the lead after a fantastic quarter just killed this team, and we saw it in the 4th. A true champion brushes it off and competes. It took the C's over eight minutes to hit their first field goal of the 4th quarter. Sure, some credit has to go to the Warriors' defense, but talk about turtling when the lights are brightest. Just a gross display of offensive basketball. The Celtics aren't dead yet, but if they come out flat on Thursday like they did tonight, they're gonna watch another team win a championship on their parquet floor. Hopefully, they can keep their perfect record in elimination games (3-0 these playoffs) alive for another night, but this one will sting for a while.
1 Comment
Heavenly Mamba
6/14/2022 04:17:55 pm
Jayson better face time me before game 6 Leave a Reply. |
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