![]() ![]() Just less hero ball and something to slow us down to get us the shot we actually want.” “(Knicks) score three baskets in a row, we slow it down and get a quality shot, instead of adding to it. “Gotta understand time, score, situation, and when we need to slow it down and get a really good shot and not just play in that flow,” Udoka said. That’s where a 6-0 run doesn’t balloon into a 15-2 barrage. Udoka said there is a “mental toughness” problem “where something goes a little bad and we all start to drop our heads or everybody adds to it instead of stepping up and calming us.” He’s trying to figure out how to balance letting his team play randomly in transition to use its speed and skill to its advantage with calling plays to actually get a foot anchored in to push back against the swelling tide. So, step up, or (we’re) going to have to stop all our momentum and pace and call a play. “We need some leadership, somebody that can calm us down and not get rattled when everything starts to go a little south,” Udoka said. Udoka and his staff are ultimately responsible for having an effective accountability dynamic on the floor, but he is halfway into the season and still calling on someone to take the mantle of making it stick. It was everything leading up to it.”īut as much as the coach can try to deliver the gospel in the huddle, that’s 60 seconds of motivation and then it’s in the players’ hands when the ball gets inbounded. “Message was short and sweet Wasn’t about the last play again. Either we’re going to make some adjustments and get tired of it or it’s going to keep happening,” said Udoka. When he did get the team in the huddle, he tried to break the cycle that saw them tumbling. But a coach can only call so many timeouts in a game. Udoka tries to create moments to sense the danger, get in a fighting stance and punch back. The Celtics with a lead have been a sloth seeing an eagle circling overhead. It’s the world’s slowest fight or flight response. There is no attention to detail and competitiveness that permeates throughout a lineup rotation. The existential crisis is that as much as you want to blame the crunch time offensive decision-making and overall design, that is only a manifestation of the fundamental emotional issue. “We just have to find it in ourselves - the grit and the fight - to just come together when something’s not going our way.” “We get rattled a lot, especially when we’re facing adversity,” said Williams. Everyone down the line just has to be better.” It’s not like we’re making an active effort to lose these leads. “Like you said, I guess four times now we have not done that and let it snowball. Eight-to-two run, you call a timeout, that should be when you answer it,” said Tatum. The Athletic asked Tatum in his postgame press conference why these flurries keep turning into avalanches. No other team has done that more than twice. This was the fourth time the Celtics have given up a comeback of at least 19 points and lost the game this season. It was pandemonium, deja vu of the MSG ecstasy that produced a Sidetalk video that will play on a loop in the MoMa one day. In the end, Jayson Tatum hit a dagger to tie it up at 105 before RJ Barrett hit a miracle off the glass right over him to win it at the buzzer as the Celtics walked off the court completely hapless for the second night in a row. ![]() Then Fournier found Taj Gibson for a jumper, Marcus Smart missed a wide-open 3 and Immanuel Quickley clapped back and the Knicks’ 21-3 run made it a one-possession game. Udoka brought the starting lineup out, something that rarely happens to start the final period.Įspecially considering the Knicks were deep into their second unit rotation, this was supposed to be the course correction that brought the Celtics back toward the comfortable lead they cobbled together throughout the night. That must be why the message wasn’t getting through. But Rob Williams said after the game that the Garden crowd was so loud that the Celtics players could hardly even hear Ime Udoka on the bench. The quarter break was supposed to be a chance to regroup, push back and shift direction. These are your Celtics.Īt this moment, a Celtics blowout was so very clearly turning into a Knicks comeback, another skillet full of egg on Boston’s face after a tumultuous final minute the night before against San Antonio. Then they get too close to the sun and slip into a slow-motion Icarusian descent from the heavens landing with a thud as Randle makes them look helpless and Evan Fournier finds just a sliver of room to throw a dagger through their hopes of becoming a winning team. They look great, everything is fixed and the Celtics are a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Grant Williams was flummoxed he could get tossed around like that by a barreling force. Rob Williams sat there waiting for his perpetually concerning knee to say everything was OK.
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