BOSTON \u2014 On Thursday night, the Celtics sent another warning to the NBA with one of their best nights of a season. Jayson Tatum was named an All-Star starter again as the C\u2019s produced a record-breaking offensive performance in a rout of the Heat. The vibes were high as they left Miami to come home for a long homestand.<\/p>\n
Two nights later, Tatum had to resort to sitting the entire fourth quarter at the end of the bench with a towel draped over his back. It was not for a good reason.<\/p>\n
The Celtics followed up arguably their best performance of the season with their worst. For the first time this season, the C\u2019s looked completely inept. They looked lost in a brutal 115-96 loss to the Clippers at TD Garden that wasn\u2019t even that close.<\/p>\n
Tatum scored 21 points to lead the Celtics, who put up enough bricks to build a few new buildings in downtown Boston. After lighting up the nets in Miami, they shot 35.6% from the field and went 10 for 40 from 3. They missed countless layups. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla couldn\u2019t use up his timeouts quickly enough. They were booed on their home court for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard scored 26 points, Paul George had 17 points and old friend Daniel Theis had 18 points off the bench \u2014 more than any Celtic not named Tatum \u2014 for the Clippers, who were on the second leg of a back-to-back. You\u2019d be forgiven if you thought it was the Celtics who were on the back-to-back.<\/p>\n
The C\u2019s didn\u2019t have Kristaps Porzingis, but that was little excuse. No one really showed up. Derrick White and Al Horford combined to go 0 for 13. Jaylen Brown had eight points on 3-for-13 shooting. Jrue Holiday had seven points on 2-for-11 shooting. The Celtics, who started 20-0 at home, have dropped two straight games at TD Garden to potential NBA Finals opponents after their loss to the Nuggets last week. Both losses were defined by offensive struggles.<\/p>\n
Saturday was far worse. They scored 39 points and trailed by 16 at halftime after a first half that didn\u2019t seem like it could get worse. But then it did. Tatum scored seven consecutive Celtics points over the first two minutes of the third quarter and they looked like they possibly had a comeback in them.<\/p>\n
They did not. The offensive struggles that ensued were shocking, as the Celtics went on a scoring drought of six minutes, 34 seconds. After the Celtics cut their deficit to 12, the Clippers went on a 21-0 run. In that span, Mazzulla called two timeouts. Nothing could help them. Bricks piled up. Turnovers led to easy baskets. Holiday had one turnover in which he passed out of bounds to nobody. Tatum, after a couple of misses, was called for a technical foul complaining for a foul.<\/p>\n
It all unraveled as the Celtics went down by as many as 36 and never recovered. They scored just 60 points through three quarters. Mazzulla pulled his starters at the start of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
The Celtics shot 26.9% in the first quarter, including 2 for 12 from deep, but only trailed by five. It seemed like a minor win. Surely the Celtics\u2019 shots would eventually start falling.<\/p>\n
They never did.<\/p>\n
Sam Hauser made a 3-pointer to begin the second quarter to put the Celtics within three. It proved to just be a glimmer of hope. Even without their top two starts in George and Leonard, who sat to begin the second, the Clippers dominated. James Harden drew a flagrant foul on Brown while shooting a 3-pointer. The Clippers were putting in the extra efforts as they took a 47-32 lead.<\/p>\n
The Celtics created a spark by turning defense into offense to cut the deficit to 47-37, but it didn\u2019t last. The bricks continued to clang. They scored 39 first-half points, their second lowest of the season. It was just one more than from their blowout loss to Milwaukee a few weeks ago, when they were on the second leg of a back-to-back and in the midst of a grueling schedule. They had no such excuses on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u00a92024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a> <\/p>\n KeyWords:: 87e8182c-d448-493c-9c42-2061c6f386a7 BOSTON \u2014 On Thursday night, the Celtics sent another warning to the NBA with one of their best nights of a season. Jayson Tatum was named an All-Star starter again as the C\u2019s produced a record-breaking offensive performance in a rout of the Heat. The vibes were high as they left Miami to come home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101764,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101763\/revisions\/101764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n87e8182c d448 493c 9c42 2061c6f386a7
\nBC-BKN-CLIPPERS-CELTICS:YB
\nBC BKN CLIPPERS CELTICS YB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"