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BOSTON – The Boston Celtics were not at all reassured after the 117-109 loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday, bringing them back to 9-9 this season.
The players seemed shocked and a bit lost. Brad Stevens was short of strong words on tenacity.
"I know we're going to be asking questions about specific parts of the game," said Stevens, "and I'm going to answer whatever you want, but that's a lot of things." We have a myriad of problems at solve."
But the reporters did not ask a lot of questions about specific parts of the game, because the details matter less than the whole situation. After a defeat like Wednesday's, when the Celtics went out of the limelight against a team with Zion Williamson eyes more than in the playoffs, the way the team meets after its first fighting is a more important issue than Stevens's. substitution models.
After all, the Celtics have invoked tangible reasons to explain some of the difficulties. Gordon Hayward is still working his way back. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown adapt to new roles. The Celtics have to go to the end. They must go to the line. They must involve everyone. Al Horford must score. The bench must contribute.
Except on Wednesday, a lot of things happened.
Hayward had one of his best performances of the season, scoring 19 points and qualifying five times.
Tatum and Brown attacked the strong rim and threw respectively 15 and 11 points, and eight and five rebounds.
The Celtics have reached the edge. They made 33 free throws, equalizing their highest level of the season. The Celtics have made 24 free throws or more in seven games. In the six hours before Wednesday, they were undefeated.
The Celtics had six double-digit players, including Marcus Morris on the bench.
All these things were true and the Celtics were still following the Knicks by 26 at one point on Wednesday. They could not defeat Trey Burke in the home straight.
"I mean, we do not play good basketball," Hayward said. "I think it's still early.This is not so early, but it's still definitely early."
He is right, but the only problem that has affected the Celtics all year, the shooting, does not seem to go away. The Celtics finished at 39.2% of the ground and 30.3% at three Wednesday. They also shot 71.9% of the free throw line, which is discouraging. Tatum finally forced the line nine times, but he only made six. Brown went to the basket, but he finished only 3-in-6.
"I think I'm included, we look good, and they do not like us, we have to keep shooting at them, but shoot them to shoot them, not just pulling them out," Hayward said.
At some point, the blows must simply fall. On Wednesday, the Celtics tried and tried to follow Stevens' request to go to the brink to open things up and they were successful to a certain extent. This did not matter. Anything broken with this team just refuses to click again.
"There is no more time to wait," said Irving. "It's not that I press the panic button or anything like that, I just think there's no more time waiting for the matches start and then fall into a hole where even our audience was impatient and the guys in a hurry It's a long game, but I think that there are things controllable at the beginning of the game that we can fix. "
Thanksgiving is reserved for the Celtics before going to Atlanta and Dallas. A defeat (or, at worst, a pair of defeats) in both games would send fans screaming at the trading machine. The questions – like the boos that finally started in earnest on Wednesday – would spark a warm roar.
But maybe these questions do not have easy answers. Maybe the wrong questions are asked. Or maybe everything comes down even more simply.
"I just do not know we're so good," said Stevens. "Maybe it's not a wake up call if you keep fighting, we need to play better.This is not because we are not able to be good. It's not because we were not good at some point in our lives – it's good if you play well and the results speak for themselves. "
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