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A blown tiebreaker, a sudden must-win, & forfeited rights to gripe about refs: 8 things we learned from Bosto – MassLive.com

Mar 4th, 2020

In an alternate universe, the Boston Celtics would have held on to beat the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night in Boston and Celtics Nation would have had more of a feeling of relief this morning. It probably would have felt like that time you looked down at your phone a little too long while driving, looked up just in time to avoid a wreck, and you thought to yourself, well, I probably shouldnt do that again.

Instead, the Celtics left their fans with maybe their worst feeling of the season. And upon further review, this loss might have been more costly than it seemed.

Here are eight things we learned.

1. The Celtics deserved what they got

We should start here. The Celtics let Caris Levert outscore them 37-36 in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Yes, you read that correctly. In the final 17 minutes of play, LeVert scored 37 points to Bostons 36. He outscored and out-shot the entire Boston Celtics team.

Sometimes things dont go your way, the other team gets to feeling really good, and then you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders to finish the game, Brad Stevens said after the game. And usually you do that with your effort. And you get a tough stop, a tough rebound, a loose ball, we didnt get any of that stuff. So we deserved to lose.

Deserve to lose they did. They were up 18 in the fourth and, while no lead is safe in the NBA, they were cruising against a team that seemed very willing to roll over and die.

Maybe thats what they sensed too because they got very casual for a long time, and it seemed like they were just waiting for the Nets to quit.

Brooklyn did not quit, and its Bostons own fault.

2. Brad Stevens missed chances to stop this

I should have subbed a couple of guys out that normally play, and I just kept them in, Stevens admitted. We had the right intensity for most of the game and we just let our foot off the gas. But we got four stops in the fourth quarter. They scored 51 points. We made a lot of plays today that were just not winning plays and very simple, basic parts of our defensive system.

Stevens was upset with his players, and most of the fault after this game lies with them, but not only didnt he sub underperforming players out of the game, he didnt call timeouts that could have reset things in the midst of Brooklyn runs. He ultimately needed them at the end, but he might have been able to avoid it with some more momentum-stoppers earlier in the quarter.

This is one of those everyone is to blame kind of games, and Stevens shoulders some of that after this one.

3. The Celtics probably blew a big tiebreaker

As I noted last week, the top three tiebreakers are head-to-head record, division winner, and division record.

If the Celtics lose to the Toronto Raptors on March 20 and end up tied at the end of the season, this loss will loom large. A Raptors win eliminates the first two tiebreakers because the head-to-head would be even and theyd be tied for the division lead.

That means division record becomes the tiebreaker if Toronto wins on March 20, and Torontos is 1.5 games better than Bostons. On top of that, a Raptors win on March 20 theyll add another game of separation.

Boston only has three division games left. If Toronto wins that game on March 20, they will very likely lock up the second seed because they will have cinched the tiebreaker.

4. The Cavs game becomes very important in the standings

The tiebreaker might not be necessary if the Celtics lose to the Cavs on Wednesday night.

The Raptors have built a 1.5 game lead over the Celtics and their next games are against Golden State and Sacramento. A loss to the Cavs would start to put some separation between the two, and suddenly that March 20 game becomes less important.

If the Celtics really want that second seed, then the Cavs game becomes pretty important.

5. They might not have any of their starters for it

Lets run this down:

I have no idea whos going to Cleveland. I think most of the coaches are going, Stevens said after the game. I just want eight guys, nine guys, whoevers going to play hard, lets go. Like, that was ridiculous.

At this rate, they might as well wear Maine Red Claws jerseys in Cleveland. It might make most of the players more comfortable.

6. Stevens seemed to have a plan for the back-to-back

Stevens has noticeably shortened his rotations lately but he went 10-deep in the first quarter and every active player played.

Even in overtime, no one played more than 35 minutes (though Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown might have if circumstances were different). It seemed that Stevens had a plan to get more guys minutes after the heavy-minutes game the starters played against Houston and with a back-to-back coming up tonight.

He almost pulled it off.

7. Robert Williams returned

He didnt play much, but he made some decent plays down the stretch.

This felt like an important play at the time:

Considering we have been waiting for his return for a while, it should be noted that it happened.

8. Marcus Smarts outburst was uncalled for

After the game, Marcus Smart took his frustrations out on the officials.

Did he have a point? Maybe. However, in that moment, this is a bad look.

I get Smart is upset and obviously everyone wants the right calls to be made in these situations, but the Celtics put themselves in the position to let the refs impact the game.

Thats it. Period. Full stop.

The Celtics should have taken care of business much earlier in the fourth quarter, and by blowing chance after chance after chance, they forfeited the right to be mad at an officials blown call. They had plenty of opportunities to avoid allowing a refs judgement to impact the game. They didnt deserve to get bailed out by a whistle.

Most of these topics were discussed on the new Locked On Celtics podcast. You can listen below and use the subscribe button on the embedded player to subscribe to the show and get new episodes delivered directly to your device.

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A blown tiebreaker, a sudden must-win, & forfeited rights to gripe about refs: 8 things we learned from Bosto - MassLive.com

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