Apr 26, 2025 7 min read

Keeping the Loss in Perspective

There are so many different captions I could put here, but suffice to say it sums up all of my emotions of watching this game very succinctly. (Image Credit: "The Nice Guys")

Last season, the Celtics lost three playoff games. The first one came even earlier in the postseason, as the C's dropped Game 2 to Miami a game after blowing them off the court. Bam Adebayo shot 9-for-13, Tyler Herro shot 7-for-13, and Caleb Martin went 7-for-12. The latter pair combined for 11 three pointers (the game was enough to trick the idiot 76ers into paying Martin last offseason, a mistake they only escaped because the Mavericks are even dumber). In the aftermath, you could see the sky falling, as the echoes of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals were unavoidable.

After a blowing out the Cavs in Game 1 of the second round in similar fashion, Donovan Mitchell came out in the third quarter of Game 2 and caught fire. A tie game at halftime didn't last long as Mitchell shot 4-for-5 from deep, pouring in 16 third-quarter points to give Cleveland a 12-point lead that they would add to in salting away the game, 118-94. I was in the building for that one, and everyone left just shellshocked. The same feeling would permeate during Game 4 of the NBA Finals, which Dallas won 122-84, though that felt over even before halftime.

Then there were the games they almost lost. Game 1 against Indiana required two separate miracle plays from Jaylen Brown just to get it to overtime, and Game 3 – when they trailed by eight points with three minutes left, needed a masterful steal from Jrue Holiday to seal it.

Last night, Holiday wasn't available, as all of a sudden he has a strained hamstring. And the miracle in last night's game is that JB, Joe Mazzulla, and everyone else on the Celtics didn't murder the referees where they stood, because they were completely asleep at the wheel.

The only other game I felt like the C's were truly wronged in by the refs this season was the OKC game in Boston, and that was a tame affair compared to last night. OKC is physical, but Orlando is literally committing assault on every possession. Most of the time, there are not basketball plays being made. Three games – three injuries. Jayson Tatum's wrist, Kristaps Porzingis' forehead, and now Jaylen Brown's finger. NBA.com didn't clip the reaction, but after Guthrie announced the flagrant foul, Cole Anthony shook his head derisively, he didn't think it was a flagrant foul and was unapologetic. Again, he dislocated Brown's finger on the play. That's not basketball. It's barely even rugby. The refs are failing to contextualize what is happening within the scope of the rules because Orlando is doing it on every possession. And when the C's try to match it, they're often being whistled, because it is out of character for the C's, who usually succeed in playing clean games.

Fortunately for the C's, David Guthrie, Courtney Kirkland, and Trey Maddox are unlikely to be on the call for Game 4. Also, fortunately for the C's, so many abnormal things happened in Game 3. Let's recap, briefly:

Turnovers: Something curious is happening here. NBA.com and ESPN.com list the C's as having committed 19 turnovers, while Basketball-Reference has it at 21. I thought 21 was the number, that was the number mentioned to JB in his postgame press conference. It's telling that there is disagreement about the number, it is a good example of how poorly the game was officiated. In any case, it was one of their worst showings of the season. Twenty-one would be a season high, and 19 would be tied for second-worst, with only their 20 vs. Atlanta in November being worse. And Dyson Daniels had six steals in that one. Many of the turnovers last night were self inflicted. Tatum literally just threw the ball out of bounds at one point. He and JB combined for one turnover in Game 1, and it was a laugher. JB only committed three turnovers in Game 2. Last night, the Jay's combined for 13. It's not complicated – the two of them need to take care of the ball. They can't control when the refs get bullied into making phantom carrying calls by Orlando's coach, but they can control dribbling the ball off their feet and chucking the ball into the fifth row.
Kristaps Porzingis: I've scraped better games off the bottom of my shoe. Three-for-10 from the field, 0-for-3 from three, and just six rebounds in in more than 34 minutes of action. Every time he touched the ball, you could feel the Magic salivating. KP did a good job of getting to the free-throw line in Game 2, and needs to get back to that. If he can't be more effective in Game 4, there should be serious consideration given to starting Luke Kornet in Game 5.
Joe Mazzulla: Much is being made/will be made of Mazzulla's seemingly curious decision to leave JB on the bench for much of crunch time. I'm willing to give him a tiny pass on that because at the time we didn't know JB has dislocated his finger. And in a game with 43 fouls in 48 minutes, there was somehow not one called from 3:17 to 0:48. That's just bad luck. I think it was completely reasonable to expect one sooner than that. What I can fault Mazzulla for is not putting his guys in position to succeed, and allowing the other team to dictate play. Porzingis frequently caught the ball too far from the hoop. They need to work on getting him the ball in the restricted area, and not 18-20 feet out. When KP gets the ball that close to the hoop, fouling him hard is often the only strategy, and he can either get a bunny or a trip to the foul line. Mazzulla is also not getting players easy three's on curl screens and whatever else they usually do to get guys easy looks. Orlando's defensive strategy isn't that unique, it's time to make some adjustments.
Scoring Droughts: Both teams had stretches of five-plus minutes without scoring. I point this out only as an example of how this game had absolutely no flow to it at all, and that was because of the officiating crew, which was just overwhelmed. They were so overwhelmed that they took the extraordinary step of trying to explain the clock situation to NBC Sports Boston's Drew Carter live on air, which never happens and should not happen. It happened because Carter and Drew Scalabrine were incredulously screaming at the refs, because at that point incredulity and exasperation were the only emotions available.
Points Off Turnovers: This number is a little misleading, because I believe it counts buckets scored after offensive fouls, and that's not the same thing as a live-ball turnover, but the C's were outscored in this category 26-8.
Offensive Rebounds: Four of Boston's regular season losses came on nights when they allowed 15+ offensive rebounds, as they did last night. If you drop that threshold to 13, it balloons to eight losses, and if you lower it to 10 – which I think is a decent indicator of a team getting on the offensive glass – it is 16. As a reminder, the team only lost 21 games. So it's clear that this is a big factor. In the third quarter, Scal noted that the Magic were crashing four players to the offensive glass, and imploring the C's to get out and run as an antidote to this strategy. They never really did. For the game, Orlando had 15 offensive rebounds compared to just eight for Boston.
Bench: Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard only got off three shots in 38 minutes of action. That's not good enough. If the strategy is that the bench guys aren't going to shoot, then Mazzulla needs to think about playing guys like Torrey Craig who more specialize in defense, and who don't need to worry about keeping their foul count in check.
Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner Drives: Before the series, I said one of the keys would be packing the paint, because their two stars can't shoot, and only succeed when they can get near the hoop and throw the ball at the rim. Last night, they did so at will, particularly Wagner. The C's gave switches too easily, letting Orlando have whatever matchup they wanted. KP finally, finally, fought the switch when it was 95-91 with 55 seconds left, and Wagner took a characteristically ugly three. Things being what they were, it still worked out in Orlando's favor, as this was the play the C's ended up losing the challenge on. But the lesson is that KP needs to do more to fight these screens, or just play zone, and not allow himself to be drawn up to the top of the paint to be put into rotation. For some reason, Wagner loves driving on KP. Maybe it reminds him of playing against his older brother. Either way, on those drives, Wagner looks like an MVP, and if you can force him to take an outside shot, he looks like someone practicing for the shot put.

That's a lot of nitpicks for one game! And yet, to bring it back to the original point of comparison – last year's playoff losses – the C's only lost this game by two points, and had a chance to tie it at the end. Might have, in fact, if the refs had given them the 0.8 to 1.2 seconds they should have gotten, instead of 0.3. I remain of the firm belief that the C's will win this in five, with or without Jrue Holiday. But it'd be nice if the team could clean a lot of this up in the next game, because they can count on the officiating being bad, and when you're playing two opponents at the same time, you have to do everything possible to not beat yourself.