Celtics
“Down the road, we could be grateful for this stretch.”
The Celtics are in the middle of a funk. Bad shooting is a leading contributor, but Boston is not playing winning basketball, and is 2-3 in its last five games with a pair of ugly losses, to the Raptors on Wednesday and Hawks on Saturday.
Boston knows it can play better. Both head coach Joe Mazzulla and Celtics star Jayson Tatum both made that clear following Saturday’s overtime loss. However, the pair also expressed a positive outlook on the rough stretch.
“You’ve got to take the good with the bad, and understand that down the road, we could be grateful for this stretch,” Tatum said postgame. “If we continue to stick together, if we continue to be a close-knit group. If we figure it out together, come out on the other side of this, we’ll feel a lot better about ourselves.”
A lot went wrong for Boston against Atlanta, particularly in the final 30 seconds of regulation. However, at the heart of the issues, the Celtics stars had another ice-cold shooting night.
Tatum seemed to have the worst of it down the stretch; he was 1 for 7 from the field in the fourth quarter and overtime. That included just two points in overtime, a missed game-tying shot in overtime and a missed game-winner in regulation.
Granted, both his buzzer shots were challenging, but at least the overtime…