There weren’t any positives to pull from the Boston Celtics’ 118-95 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday. Not one. The offense churned out 38.4 field goal percentage and went 6 for 30 from three (20 percent). The defense let the Raptors run rampant all night, just three days after surrendering 126 to the Chicago Bulls.
Brad Stevens told reporters in Toronto he wasn’t satisfied with what he saw on the floor, either.
Same old, same old. I thought that, obviously, we struggled to score in those stretches and then that bled into transition defense, bled into our defense. I thought we were all over the place defensively tonight. And when I say all over the place I mean we were taking a lot of shortcuts, and that hurt us.
The “shortcuts” Stevens mentioned aren’t new either. It’s something Boston did in Chicago, as well. Maybe all the Celtics need is Aron Baynes back in the lineup. But if this is something that’s happened more than once, he may not be enough to stop the bleeding.
The reality is that we’re taking a lot of shortcuts and not being as solid as we have been in the past — in the last two games. I thought we were really good against Milwaukee, so it’s not like we don’t know what we need to do, but we just, for whatever reason, have taken too many shortcuts. And, you know, you can’t do that against any team, and certainly tonight, they exposed us and played great.
In the end, it boils down to the same story that’s haunted this group all season: they don’t play as a cohesive unit.
We have to be a lot more connected as a team, it’s been a theme for a while
