Celtics blow ninth fourth-quarter lead of season in collapse to Rockets
BOSTON -- The Boston Celtics were playing a different kind of blame game following the team's 114-112 loss to the Houston Rockets on Monday night. Seemingly everyone wanted to shoulder responsibility for the team's latest collapse.
Head coach Joe Mazzulla said he didn't put the right matchups on the floor in the closing seconds. Jaylen Brown blamed himself for not switching with Luke Kornet onto Amen Thompson on Houston's game-winning possession. Kornet blamed himself for getting lost away from the basket while trying to guard Alperen Sengun a possession prior.
But the Celtics shouldn't be fighting for the blame. Monday night falls on everyone for the team's lack of cohesion and coherency on the defensive end.
While Boston ultimately lost on those final two possessions, the defeat can all be traced back to another fourth-quarter collapse. The Celtics were up by a dozen points halfway through the final frame, only to let the Rockets go on a 13-0 run and ultimately steal the game at TD Garden.
How the Celtics blew their game against the Rockets
The Celtics let Dillon Brooks go off for 36 points on 13-of-23 shooting -- and a ridiculous 10-of-15 from three -- but that was by design. Mazzulla wanted his defense to take Jalen Green, Fred VanVleet, and Sengun out of the equation, and the Celtics mostly succeeded on that front. That trio only contributed 30 points off 9-of-32 shooting for the evening.
But the Celtics once again failed down the stretch. Boston held a 101-89 lead with 8:38 left after a dunk by Kornet, who made a spot start for the C's after Al Horford (toe) was a late scratch. But the Rockets ripped off 13 straight points, part of a 25-11 run to close out the contest.
The Rockets were 4-of-5 during that 13-0 run, while the Celtics were 0-of-3 with a pair of turnovers. After Thompson drained a three, Houston was suddenly up 102-101 with 5:23 to play.
A real rock fight ensued the rest of the way. The Rockets threw the better rocks, while the Celtics essentially kicked the game away.
Houston's final two possessions were filled with chaos, confusion, and miscommunication by the Celtics. Kornet let Sengun draw him away from the basket on an inbound play with 10.1 seconds left, leaving the Houston big man wide open for a dunk to give the Rockets a 112-110 lead.
Jayson Tatum tied it with a driving layup with 5.1 seconds to go, but more connectivity issues popped up on Boston's final defensive play. Just before the Rockets inbounded the ball, Brown and Kornet played hot potato with their matchup on Thompson before ultimately deciding to switch at the last second. That brief moment of hesitation left Thompson open to hit a game-winning floater with a fraction of a second left on the clock.
"Those last two plays were on me. Those were my fault," Mazzulla said after the loss. "It didn't put us in the best matchups. I saw the play that they were trying to run. I tried to change the matchups. They put our guys in a tough spot. So that's a tough one because I thought our guys did everything to win the game, and they put us in a position to win it, and I didn't help them at the end. So both those plays, 100 percent on me."
Brown disagreed, and said he should have been better and more prepared on Houston's last possession.
"They were trying to go at Luke. I should have sniffed it out earlier," he said. "We to tried communicate the switch to get Luke off Thompson, because he had it going and they were going to try to get it to him. The timing was miscued and they scored at the end.
"It's tough to switch like that or make that call. We should have probably just stayed," admitted Brown, who led the scoring charge for the Celtics with 28 points. "But if you could sniff it out early to see where it's coming, you get one of your better defenders in the action. It happens and it cost us at the end."
Houston was on fire to close out the game, hitting 60 percent of its shots (9-of-15) during that game-closing run. The Rockets had an assist on all nine of those buckets.
Meanwhile, the Celtics were just 4-of-14 -- hitting just one of seven three-point attempts -- to close out the game. Their lack of defense led to struggles on offense, and it all led to another loss in a game the Celtics should have won.
It would be one thing if this was just a fourth-quarter hiccup against a good team. But the Celtics have developed a really nasty habit of letting late leads slip away this season.
Celtics fourth-quarter struggles
The Boston Celtics have now blown a fourth-quarter lead nine times this season. Nine times in 47 games. They blew nine games in the fourth quarter all of last season. Monday night was the seventh time this season the Celtics have lost a game they led by 10 points.
Most worrisome though is that seven of those nine blown games have come in front of their home fans. The Celtics dropped to 15-8 at TD Garden with Monday's loss, after going 37-4 at home last season.
It has become abundantly clear that the Celtics have a fourth-quarter issue. In the team's 15 losses this season, Boston is giving up a league-high 31.8 points in the fourth quarter. In those losses, opponents are draining 53.4 percent of their shots and 46.7 percent from three (both ranking second in the NBA) in the fourth quarter against Boston.
In their wins, the Celtics are only allowing opponents to score just 24.7 points (fourth-best in the league) in the fourth.
"We have to be better down the stretch and execute," said Brown. "Tonight wasn't the best example of that, so it's something we have to look at, for sure."
If the Celtics want to stop letting wins slip away, they need to start by being much, much better on the defensive end to close out games. There is still a lot of time left in the regular season to fix this glaring flaw, but it's something that must be addressed if Boston wants to go on another title run this summer.