The Celtics keep finding new ways to lose in the month of February and fall further in the Eastern Conference standings. Wednesday’s blowout loss to the Atlanta Hawks was the latest example, featuring a pair of 30-plus point performances from Danilo Gallinari and Trae Young against a lifeless Boston team that dropped their third straight game overall.
A 8-3 start to the year for Boston created some early margin for error for this young group back in January but that has quickly dissipated during a 7-14 stretch over the past 21 games. That drop-off has the Celtics currently sitting as the No. 7 seed in the East after Wednesday’s loss. A loss Friday against the Pacers could drop Boston out of the playoff picture entirely for the time being.
The All-Star break is within sight for the 15-17 Celtics (four games remaining) but there is no guarantee this team will find itself even back at the .500 mark by the time they get there. A four-game homestand awaits now with matchups against the Clippers and two red-hot teams in Washington and Toronto after Indiana. A 3-1 finish to the first half is far from a guarantee, especially with Marcus Smart not expected to return as he continues to recover from a torn calf injury during that stretch.
“We should play better than we have without him is number one,” Brad Stevens admitted after the C’s dropped to 5-9 without their starting guard in the past month. “What he brings to the table is obvious on both ends of the court, it’s statistically backed up, anybody who watches basketball and knows basketball knows that.
“The second part is that it makes it so that your rotations, you always have two of (your core guys) in the game. That’s something that’s been hurtful but it’s no excuse for not finding a way to win the New Orleans game. It’s no excuse for not being a couple possessions better yesterday. We may have beaten tonight anyway because sometimes you get hit with a flurry of haymakers in the NBA like these guys did to us tonight but we could have been in a better position had we played better.”
Smart’s absence has eliminated what was already a thin margin of error for a team that was short on firepower this year on the wing already once Gordon Hayward elected to leave for Charlotte. Boston’s front office elected to pass on addressing that issue in the offseason, opting for another center (Tristan Thompson) and a past his prime point guard (Jeff Teague) as their major offseason additions on top of rookies.
Both players have underperformed and the end result has been a flawed supporting cast with some of the worst bench production in the year to date (26th in points per game). Aaron Nesmith, Payton Pritchard and Rob Williams have all helped at times but remain inconsistent. Other young contributors have regressed from year-to-year, failing to consistently fill the scoring void or provide reliability on defense.
In recent weeks, Danny Ainge has preached patience in regards to improving this mismatched roster heading into the month of March with the trade deadline looming on March 25th.
“We are doing research on it,” Danny Ainge said on Toucher and Rich earlier this month. “We have been all year, and we’ll continue all the way up until the trade deadline, which is the end of March. I think that the sweet spot most likely is latter March. But we’d do it right now if we had a really good deal.
“The challenge is that deals that you could do to incrementally change your team might be able to be done shortly here within the next week or two,” added Ainge, “but are you passing up a chance that would be even better down the road? And that’s what we have to try to identify.”
While that mentality holds some weight for a team that is playing well or at least holding its own, the Celtics are not in a spot where they can afford to wait another month for help with this roster. There are major holes all across the rotation right now that won’t necessarily be solved by the returns of Marcus Smart and Romeo Langford.
With the drop-off in play from Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in recent weeks as their minutes have added up, the Celtics look like a team that might need to scratch and claw their way all season long to ensure they aren’t forced into a play-in situation when the playoffs roll around. One more injury without some trade help could sink them as well.
“This is an unforgiving league,” Stevens said Wednesday night. “The minute you have issues, people are trying to take advantage of it. When you have something on the court that people feel like they can expose or exploit, they are going to do that over and over and over and over until you change.”
Whether or not the Celtics’ brass wants to invest heavily in this current team is a conversation that’s worth having at the All-Star Break. However, if the answer is yes upon a return to full health, some upgrades can’t wait until the trade deadline. There is lots of room for improvement at the bottom of the rotation on a team that looks like their top players are wearing down already after carrying such a heavy burden night in and night out amid Kemba Walker’s inconsistency.
“It’s tough, but you’ll never hear me making an excuse,” Brown said. “That’s just not me. So despite whatever the adversity is that as a unit we’re facing, individually, injuries, COVID, whatnot, you know, we’ve still gotta find a way to win through all that. We have had opportunities and we haven’t.”
With a 72-game condensed schedule that includes an unforgiving second half loaded with makeup matchups after COVID-19 cancellations, the road is not going to get easier for this team. It’s up to the front office to give the core and Brad Stevens enough help to turn things around.
