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The Boston Celtics just do not understand it.
After a loss to the Charlotte Hornets, the C came home to face a team of 4 to 14 of the New York Knicks who had lost six games in a row. But what seemed to be the perfect recipe for a game that goes well turns into another grueling night for the Celtics and their fans.
New York took a 26 – point lead in the middle of the second quarter, as Boston struggled to take the offensive and yielded a number of open looks to Trey Burke, Kevin Knox and the rest of the Knicks.
It was the eighth time in nine games that the Celtics had fallen into a double-digit hole, and once again, they came back strong, reducing the lead to three with less than a minute to play. But it was too little and too late for the Cs, while the Knicks won 117-109 to give Boston their third straight loss and knock the Celtics down 9-9 this season.
Head Coach Brad Stevens has been looking for answers for quite some time, changing his lineup before the Hornets game, and furiously mixing the lines throughout the games to find a combination that works.
But if you ask Stevens, it may be easier than taking open pictures or taking the time to freeze. Maybe Boston is not all he has cracked.
"I just do not know we're so good," Stevens said, as shown by the NBC Sports Boston cover after the game. "It's not an awakening if you keep getting beaten up. We must play better. And it is not because we are not able to be good, it is not because we have not been good at some point in our lives. You are good if you play well and I mean that the results speak for themselves. "
Sitting at .500 with nearly a quarter of the season gone, Boston failed to keep up with the huge hype that surrounded her at the start of the season. Kyrie Irving is aware that the Celtics can not wait for everything to happen as if by magic, and the time has come to straighten the boat.
"Honestly, we can not wait any longer," Irving said after the match. "You know for me, everyone as a collective, our coaching staff, we do not have time to wait and see if the guys will go the extra mile, including myself. It's just a point of view of responsibility that we all must have, and I think we're taking steps in the right direction, you know, I just think it's just tiring at this point- It's about showing some brilliance and then putting that deep hole in and we're constantly coming back and we can not play like that.
"I think at this point it's tiring," Irving continued. "It's no longer time to wait. It's not that I'm pushing the panic button or something like that, I just think there's no more time waiting for the games to start like that and crash into a hole where even our audience is more and more worried and the guys are pushing stuff like that. "
Boston has now lost six of its last 10 games and has not found an offensive pace this season yet. While the Eastern Conference has improved a lot, the Celtics must follow the advice of their star and start running as the championship caliber team they are supposed to be.
The waiting time is over.
Here are more notes from Celtics-Knicks:
– A decisive match after Boston's loss to the Knicks was Gordon Hayward's play. The veteran striker had one of his best games of the season, scoring 19 points, a top in the season, on 6 of 14 shots on goal. While it was certainly a step in the right direction, Hayward knows he has much more to offer.
"I think it was a stage tonight, but in the end, I have so much more than I can give to the team," said Hayward, as can be seen on NBC Sports Boston . "It's not quite our way yet. It's frustrating to see plans come and go, or watch a movie and see how I could be more aggressive or do things like that. "
– Irving scored 22 points and collected 13 assists on Wednesday to become the first Celtics player since Rajon Rondo in 2011 to record two consecutive games with 20 points and 10 assists.
– Irving has three doubles in doubles in Boston's last four games. He had zero in his first 13.
Photo thumbnail via Greg M. Cooper / USA TODAY Sports Images
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