The Celtics suffered one of their ugliest losses of the year on Monday night, blowing a 30-point lead to a shorthanded Hawks team in a 120-118 defeat in Atlanta. The setback snapped a nine-game winning streak for Boston that had helped them secure the No. 1 seed in the East over the weekend. However, with a shorthanded backcourt (no Jrue Holiday or Derrick White) available against Atlanta, Kristaps Porzingis believed the Celtics got a little too comfortable after building an sizable lead in the second quarter.
“We relaxed,” Porzingis told reporters in Atlanta. “It’s natural when you go up 30 and feel like everything is smooth and you relax. For that type of team, if you relax too much and give them some open looks, those guys can make shots, they are an offensive-minded team. They got going and then it’s a tough battle to try to bring it back to where we want it. They played a competitive game and we gave them too much life.”
The Celtics struggled mightily on both ends of the floor in the second half, blowing nearly their entire 30 point lead by midway through the third quarter. Ultimately, Boston scored only 44 points in the second half, the same amount they scored in the first quarter alone. The dramatic collapse was ugly amid Boston’s hot play of late but Porzingis did not want to overreact about the team’s setback after the loss.
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“It’s the NBA, these kind of things happen,” Porzingis said. “We just don’t want to make it a habit and it hasn’t been a habit for us. We slipped one game and we did relax a little bit and we paid the price.”
Despite much of the focus being on the Celtics’ offensive drop-off in the second half, the team’s defense was the bigger issue in crunch time. Boston failed to get consistent stops in a tie game down the stretch and Porzingis points out some poorly timed fouls from Boston’s stars in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum late.
“I think we could have been smarter in a couple situations on defense,” Porzingis said. “We should have made them work to get their buckets more.”
The Celtics will get a chance at redemption on Thursday night in Atlanta after a two-day break. In a unique scenario, the Hawks will host another team in Atlanta (Portland) before closing out the back-to-back against Boston at State Farm Arena in what will be the final matchup of the year between the two teams.
