Celtics take a "step back" after Sixers loss
They said it, not me, but I do agree with Avery Bradley and Brad Stevens. After the Celtics erased a 24 point deficit in the second half of Wednesday nights game against the Knicks.Things seemed to be heading into a much better direction.Now we find ourselves questing Jeff Green again. Who has missed 8-of-28 shots so far this preseason for a mere 6.6 points per game. He's playing around 22 minutes per game through three games, and it's okay if you hit the panic button on him. Because honestly, the stats tell part of the story. We've watched the games. Jeff hasn't shown us any leadership qualities so far. It's still early, but we are talking about Jeff Green though.
Boston Herald
The Celtics are still able to lean on perspective and their relatively early position in the rebuilding process. But they were clearly dissatisfied with the effort they put forth in a 97-85 it-wasn’t-that-close loss to Philadelphia last night that dropped them to 0-3 in the preseason.
Going against a Sixers outfit that played in Spain last Sunday and Manchester (England, not Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Connecticut) on Tuesday, the Celts trailed by as many as 18. They cut the margin to five in garbage time before Philly ran away again.
Coach Brad Stevens made it a point to credit the Sixers for their work, but he lamented his team’s failure to provide proper transition defense.
“We’ve got to get guys back,” he said. “So, yeah, it wasn’t a good performance by us by any means, and we’ll leave it at that and move forward.”
He added later, “Any time you don’t have maximum effort it’s disappointing. But it’s the reality of basketball that sometimes you don’t have it and you try to do better the next day. And I think it’s going to be very telltale how we show up (tonight against the Knicks).”
The Celts were outscored, 56-36, in the paint and outrebounded, 54-43 (33-18 in the first half).
“We didn’t start the game off with effort,” said Gerald Wallace. “We didn’t start it off playing together. We were five individuals out there playing against the Philadelphia team. They jumped on us quick. They ran the ball right down our throat. We started looking at one another trying to figure out what was going on, and the whole time they were continuing to run at us.”
Added Avery Bradley: “I feel like we kind of took a few steps back tonight. . . . The ball was stagnant for the most part. But I feel like we’ll be fine. This is preseason. This is what this is for.”
Bradley is right.. This is the preseason, but this is also a team without Rajon Rondo. This is also a team learning from a brand new coach. So, do what you will with that. I do think we expect more from this team. Losing to a Sixers team that's supposed to be worse then the C's is not okay.
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