Capping off a forgettable week, the Boston Celtics had two of the most challenging and uncharacteristic games they faced thus far this season. Being touted as one of the most powerful teams this season, the club suddenly found troubles and inconsistencies on their latest back-to-back occasions against the twin ball clubs in New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets.
But channeling his hilariously stoic identity, head coach Joe Mazzulla just dusted off the intensifying doubts and anxieties surrounding his team that absorbed two-straight gut-wrenching defeats in front of their stunned TD Garden crowd.
“No,” Mazzulla plainly responded when asked on sunday if he had a level of concern on the current struggles of the Cs.
Boston’s momentum started to go spiraling downward on Friday against Brooklyn. Despite constructing a gigantic 28-point margin to start, the club gradually crumbled to pieces down the line and eventually took a disappointing 115-105 loss at the final buzzer. Behind new Net standout Mikal Bridges, the Nets were able to complete the rally into the biggest comeback in a game this 2022-23 campaign.
And on Sunday, facing a New York team without star point man Jalen Brunson, Boston kept crashing down as they fell on a grinding 131-129 double-overtime rivalry showdown. Despite Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s 69 combined points, they were outlasted by the trio of Immanuel Quickley, Julius Randle, and RJ Barrett to carve the Knicks’ signature win of the season.
In possession of the Eastern Conference’s top helm for the majority of the season, the Celtics found themselves now trailing the Milwaukee Bucks at the top with 1 ½ games remaining. Should they remain at second, they may likely face a much tougher opponent come playoff time in an earlier circumstance, with Joel Embiid, James Harden, and the surging Philadelphia 76ers sitting at the third slate.
Amid this, the young mentor doesn’t feel disturbed by the newest seedings or is in need of dire urgency to reclaim the highest ranking with 17 games left in the regular season.
“It’s obviously there. The only thing you can control is try to win the games,” Mazzulla pointed out. “We put ourselves in the best possible chance to win but zero concerns. Just because there’s 17 games left doesn’t mean that there’s any different than how a stretch of a season would go, and you obviously want to be playing your best basketball later in the season as you get closer to the playoffs.
“This is a tough stretch. Whatever the stretch has, we have to learn from it so that we can use it later in the year.”
Looking to make an important bounce-back play from the two painful losses, the Celtics will briefly hit the road on Monday as they are set to spark a clash with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
