Let's play the blame game for Celtics' brutal Game 5 collapse

BOSTON -- The Celtics are waking up Wednesday morning thinking about another trip to Atlanta, instead of sleeping in and resting up for a second-round matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. The latter should still happen, but the Celtics are once again taking the hard road this postseason.

We learned throughout last postseason's run that the Celtics do a spectacular job losing games in painful fashion, whether it's squandering a chance to take control -- or end -- a series or blowing a large lead late. The Celtics did both in Tuesday night's Game 5 collapse. 

What we still don't know is if these Celtics will ever gain a killer instinct to win. They are pretty good at building leads, but they are horrendous at getting to the finish line with those leads intact.

Lessons should have been learned last year as the Celtics kept forcing themselves to play games they really shouldn't have had to play. They were on fumes by the time they reached the NBA Finals because they had to go seven games against both the Bucks and the Heat, when both of those series could have been wrapped up in six games.

And here we are again, with another needless game on the horizon on Thursday night. The Celtics have no one to blame but themselves after blowing a 13-point lead with six minutes left in Game 5. On their home floor.

The Celtics lost because an incredible player hit an incredible shot in crunch time. But it never should have come to that. 

The poise the Celtics had for roughly three quarters Tuesday night evaporated as the lead began to crumble late in the game. The team wasn't going to point fingers in the immediate aftermath of the loss, because that isn't productive from their standpoint.

But that's what we're for, and there is plenty of blame to go around for another frustrating postseason loss by the Celtics that really shouldn't have happened. 

Joe Mazzulla

The head coach was a bit of a spectator for the end of the game, using his regular-season method of letting his players play through slumps in hopes that they'd figure it out. That works in the regular season, but as we saw Tuesday night, not in the playoffs.

Mazzulla had timeouts in his back pocket as the lead disintegrated in the final four minutes. It would have been wise to calm things down and rally the troops after Jayson Tatum threw a possession away, leading to a Trae Young 27-footer to make it a three-point game with 3:18 to play. But he didn't

He had another opportunity to calm the Atlanta storm after Young came up with a steal on a Marcus Smart turnover and splashed home another three with 2:42 left, tying the game at 111-111. He did not.

Either instance would have been a great time to call a timeout, give a pep talk with some salty language, and get the team's head out of its posterior. The Celtics had been lethargic and unable to execute for nearly four minutes at that point, and their double-digit lead was extinct. 

We'll also call into question why Derrick White was only an occasional contributor as it all fell apart, and why Malcolm Brogdon didn't play for the final 7:22. Smart was clearly having a rough night, and either of Boston's other guards would have been a nice change for a team that really needed a change at that moment.

In addition, it would have been nice to see the Celtics' defense hit Young with a double team as he torched the TD Garden floor with every step he made over the final minutes. And that second-to-last play that Mazzulla drew up was.... did he even draw up a play?

This should all be a good learning moment for the first-year head coach. The playoffs are not the time to save timeouts and see if your team can work through its issues. 

Jayson Tatum

Tatum was off for most of the night, hitting just eight of his 21 shots. He was terrible from downtown, hitting just one of his 10 attempts. 

And when the Celtics needed their best player to score a bucket in the fourth, Tatum was nowhere to be found. He attempted just two shots in the final frame. His last-second air ball didn't even count toward that shot total.

A lot of that had to do with the fact that he was being double-teamed, and that Jaylen Brown was absolutely cooking. But Tatum has been criticized for not wanting to take control of the moment, and on Tuesday night, you could have filed a missing person's report on him during the fourth quarter.

Marcus Smart

Oh, Marcus. We love you, we really do. But he was a mad man at the end of the game, and couldn't rein it in at the end of the game. He had his bad-pass turnover with three minutes left that led to a Young three, and then was called for an offensive foul with just under two minutes left that turned into three made free throws by Young.

His most inexcusable Marcus Moment came with 15 seconds left, when with the Celtics up by one point, he needlessly fouled Young a mile away from the basket. That put Young at the line, and he nailed both freebies to put the Hawks back on top.

Marcus was a little too Marcus at the end of Game 5. And that's with him attempted zero shots in the fourth quarter. Usually, everyone is up in arms for Smart taking too many shots away from Tatum and Brown. On Tuesday, it was Marcus being an uncontrollable bulldog when the Celtics really needed him to hone in and play smart ball.

Now the Celtics have to go play a game they really shouldn't need to play, while the 76ers get to enjoy a few more days of rest. Joel Embiid can put his balky knee up and ice it while the Celtics head to Atlanta. 

These are the kinds of losses that haunted the Celtics last postseason. They kept saying they leaned their lesson from those travails, but until they actually cut this nonsense out, that will remain just talk.