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The Boston Celtics trailed by 13 points after one quarter, gave up 65 points by halftime and were never seriously in a 120-107 home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday.
After the game, Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving said, “There’s obviously some selfish play going on out there.”
Per Jay King of The Athletic, Irving also referenced the abundance of isolations and fadeaways in the Celtics offense.
“I get caught up in that as well,” he said. “I literally can do anything I want out there at any time I want. But at the same time it’s what can I do for my teammates to be more successful?”
The Celtics held a closed-door meeting immediately after the game, and the locker room was shut for at least 30 minutes before media was let in, per A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston.
Irving didn’t reveal details of the talk, but he said it was “well-needed,” per King.
The Celtics’ season has been eventful. On some days, they look great, like when they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road and the Bucks, Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers (the top three Eastern Conference teams) at home.
However, Boston has also inexplicably lost to some of the league’s worst teams at home, including the 9-25 New York Knicks and 8-24 Phoenix Suns. The C’s started just 10-10 before rattling off eight straight wins, but they’ve now lost three in a row by an average of 10 points.
There’s more to the Celtics’ struggles than selfish play and a scuffling offense that ranks middle of the pack in efficiency.
During a Christmas shopping spree at the Natick Mall with Sam Alipour of ESPN the Magazine, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum revealed some reasons why the C’s have been struggling, noting that the team “let the attention get to (their) heads” and that they have been inconsistent.
There could be some merit to the first reason, as the Celtics had much preseason hype after coming one game from making the NBA Finals last season despite being without Gordon Hayward for the entire year and Kyrie Irving for the playoffs.
With those two back in the mix, the C’s had 19-2 preseason odds (third-best in the league) to win the NBA Finals, per OddsShark.
Still, as Tatum also noted, it’s a long season. The page hasn’t even turned to 2019 yet, and Boston is still a top-five Eastern Conference team. If the C’s can figure things out and make a run down the stretch, they’ll be as dangerous as any team in the East.
from Top Viral News Blog http://bit.ly/2LxwaQS
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