Celtics Searching For Championship Swagger After Christmas Loss To 76ers

The Boston Celtics fell to 6-5 in December after a 118-114 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in a Christmas clash on the TD Garden parquet.

The NBA’s reigning champions are four games back of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the top seed in the East, and two ahead of the New York Knicks, who are third in the conference standings. It is the first time in two years they’ve been closer to third than first.

“We’ve got to take some ownership,” said Jayson Tatum after registering 32 points, 15 rebounds, and four assists in his team’s second straight defeat. “We’ve got to be better. We’ve gotta acknowledge the things that we’ve done not so great. We’ve got to look in the mirror and man up.”

Boston’s offense, which saw 19 turnovers result in 29 points in Monday’s loss to the Orlando Magic, whose physical approach held the former to 8/33 (24.2 percent) shooting from beyond the arc, season lows in attempts and makes.

Two days later, the Celtics surrendered a game-high 33 points to Tyrese Maxey, 16 coming inside the paint, including a layup off a sideline inbound with 1.1 seconds on the shot clock. That basket put Philadelphia ahead 112-105 with nearly a minute left, helping spoil Boston’s holiday party.

Joel Embiid chipped in 23 points. Five of the eight Sixers Nick Nurse deployed scored in double figures. The hosts didn’t have a steal until Jaylen Brown swiped the ball away from Maxey with 3:20 left in the contest.

“We’re playing inconsistent basketball,” stated Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla post-game. “We’ve got to be better at both ends of the floor.”

Caleb Martin erupting for 23 points, nearly matching his career-high of 28, exemplified the lack of focus and defensive intensity Boston demonstrated in Wednesday’s rivalry clash. Martin drilled a personal best seven threes, faring 7/9 from behind the arc and 8/11 from the field.

“Who do you help off?” Mazzulla asked rhetorically after the loss. “If you want to slow Maxey and Embiid down, you have to bring the (shots) to someone … that’s the catch-22.”

Still, most of Martin’s three-point makes came from the Celtics detaching from him for unproductive reasons, mistakes with rotations, and a lack of focus.

When asked if Boston’s potent offensive attack, which ranks fourth in points per game, averaging 118.9, and is third in offensive rating, generating 118.8 points per 100 possessions, is feeding into the most recent winners of the Larry O’Brien Trophy allowing bad habits to fester on defense, Tatum replied, “It shouldn’t. We’ve always hung our hat on being a really, really good defensive team that takes pride on that end of the ball, and we’ve got to get back to that.”

For a Celtics team that has reached the Eastern Conference Finals in five of the seven years that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have shared the floor, twice playing on the NBA’s brightest stage, ascending to the mountain top last season, not meeting their standard and having that highlighted on the marquee date on the league’s regular season calendar should provide considerable motivation.

However, around the corner awaits a stretch from the beginning of January into February, where Boston will get minimal rest while facing a gauntlet featuring most of the NBA’s top teams.

It starts with a road trip against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Denver Nuggets. They’ll also square off with the Dallas Mavericks twice, both Los Angeles teams, the Lakers and Clippers, the Golden State Warriors, the 76ers, the Cavaliers, and the Knicks.

“It’s still a long season,” cautioned Tatum. “Nobody’s panicking. You just (have) got to be able to navigate the emotional roller coaster of the NBA season. It feels a lot worse than it actually is…We (have) just got to man up; look in the mirror…Everybody is fully capable, and we’ve always done a really good job of responding. And (I) have no doubt that we will. So, not panicking, but we have got to be better, and we will.”

That starts with again living up to the “win the day” mantra they adopted last season, which helped them steamroll their way to a 64-18 campaign. They didn’t wait until the playoffs or right before it to start playing at their best then, and they shouldn’t now.

What happened on Christmas should be the tipping point that fuels the Celtics as they aim to recapture their championship form against a league that’s more formidable than it was a year ago.