BOSTON — The boos poured down early in the fourth quarter. Kristaps Porziņģis believed the Celtics deserved them.
During the possession that sparked the fans’ rage, Boston gave up two straight wide-open 3-pointers to the Sacramento Kings. On the first one, Jrue Holiday and Jaylen Brown stood and watched while Malik Monk had several seconds to line up a long jump shot. The Celtics were fortunate Monk’s attempt struck the back iron but did not work hard enough for position to grab the rebound. The long miss bounced straight to Domantas Sabonis, who lost Holiday with a ball fake before finding himself, like Monk, all alone. Unlike Monk, Sabonis drained his shot.
Really? pic.twitter.com/sEQHTeYWFW
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) January 11, 2025
With the Celtics on their way to a 114-97 home loss, the bucket forced Joe Mazzulla to call a timeout and convinced the TD Garden crowd to express its dissatisfaction.
“Honestly, I like it,” Porziņģis said of the fans’ response. “It’s kind of deserved, you know? They expect a high level from us, a high level based off our talent and what we’ve shown in the past. And when we don’t — not only that, not only just the talent and just making shots — I think when we’re not giving our all, I think that’s the most deserved boos. So it’s normal, and that’s just a sign of them wanting us to bring up our level, bring up our energy, and we have to respond to that.”
The calls inside the arena likely didn’t just stem from the effort Friday night. They carried the frustration of a month littered with letdowns. With its first loss to Sacramento since March 19, 2021, Boston dropped to 6-6 since Dec. 19. Though the Celtics still have a top-five offensive efficiency and top-five defensive efficiency during this stretch, Porziņģis acknowledged they are “not having the prettiest moment right now as a team.” He did not have a great reason why the Celtics only stared at the Kings as they fired two great 3-point looks on the same possession, but he emphasized a belief his team will eventually move past this lull.
“Honestly, some plays, it just happens,” Porziņģis said. “It’s not like we’re not trying. Like, oh, I’m thinking this guy (will) go, I’m not going, and we just stay in the same place, and it doesn’t look perfect. But we’re gonna get past it. We’re gonna be fine. We’ll figure it out. I’m telling you, I’m confident we’ll bounce back.”
The Celtics have shared various reasons for their recent slippage. Porziņģis said he is still playing his way into shape and the team is still adjusting to his presence in the lineup. Brown said the Celtics have made adjustments to counteract the new strategies opponents are using against them. Mazzulla has emphasized that the Boston starting five, which has appeared in only eight games together, is “almost at the beginning of training camp.” All of the reasoning makes sense, but it’s still jarring to see the Celtics, who returned every key player from last season’s championship team, go through such an extended streak of .500 play. At times, they have lost hold of their usual style.
The Celtics have attempted fewer than 40 3-pointers three times this season. All of those games have come in the last three weeks. They tried only 41 against the Kings for their fourth-lowest total of the season. Since the beginning of December, the Celtics rank 22nd in 3-point percentage (35 percent). Though the law of averages suggests they will eventually find their collective outside stroke again, Brown did not sound ready to blame all of the offensive problems on shot luck.
“It’s basketball at the end of the day, and we got a bunch of talented and intelligent basketball minds,” Brown said. “We just have to think the game, and I think just our pace has a lot to do with it, just get into our spacing. I think we posted a lot tonight and it kind of slowed things down. It kinda gets guys out of rhythm. We gotta keep the pace and keep everybody engaged, and I think how we get the ball up the floor, how we get to the corners and all that stuff had an effect on our offense tonight. I just think we were too slow on top of not hitting shots.”
The Celtics allowed Sacramento to shoot 18 for 47 from downtown. They surrendered 28 rebounds to Sabonis, including eight on the offensive glass. They gave up 38 points in the fourth quarter to let a tie game snowball into their second double-digit loss of the season. (The first came last weekend in Oklahoma City.) Mazzulla still believed his team’s issues began with offensive woes. When asked about the team’s recent inconsistency, he pointed to the same side of the court.
“I would just say the inconsistencies on the offensive end putting pressure on your defense,” Mazzulla said. “Again, (scoring 42 points after halftime) puts pressure (on the defense). You’ve got to be able to score, and you’ve got to be able to defend. So just those inconsistencies on the offensive end at times, whether it’s shot-making, whether it’s execution, whether it’s spacing, but I would sum it up to that.”
The Celtics dropped only four games at TD Garden all of last season. They have lost four of their last six home games. On Friday night, they shot just 13 of 33 in the second half (39.4 percent) while committing 10 turnovers. Jayson Tatum had five of Boston’s eight turnovers in the third quarter. Brown, like Mazzulla, believed the ugly offense bled into poor defense.
“Because offensively we struggled, so that puts a lot of pressure on our defense,” Brown said. “And tonight you seen we had some collapses. Part of that is first game back from a long road trip, but to be honest there’s really no excuse. So we’re going to look at it and we’re going to figure it out.”
The Celtics have sounded exasperated after some of their recent losses. Late Friday night, Porziņģis said it was “silent in the locker room, like it’s supposed to be.”
“They all sting pretty bad,” Porziņģis said. “I know we’re expected to win every game, and sometimes when we have flat days like this, which recently we’ve had a little patch, it’s not perfect. But we’ve just got to keep our head high and keep working and get better and have better offensive — especially offensive — performances.”
Porziņģis said the Celtics offense has been slower lately without enough flow or aggressiveness. He vowed they will fix the issues.
The Celtics keep saying they will eventually find solutions.
“We’re halfway through, we’re close approaching the middle of the year,” Brown said. “What is this, Game (38)? And teams have adjusted to how we kind of played early in the season and we’re making adjustments back. We’ve gotta be better at protecting the basket and we gotta figure out how to win games in different ways. I think that we’ve been injured for a good majority part of the year. Now a lot of our guys are all healthy, all on the same floor at the same time, so just figuring that rhythm out. So I believe in this group. We’re going to figure it out.”
Porziņģis stressed a similar optimism.
“We don’t need to peak right now,” Porziņģis said. “But we need to peak at the right moment as a team, and I’m confident we’ll get there.”
(Photo of Domantas Sabonis sinking his wide-open 3-pointer: Billie Weiss / Getty Images)
