Recap: 1/8 Celtics drop second straight game with 129-114 loss to Spurs

The Celtic dropped their second straight game with a bad loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Photo via the Boston Celtics on Twitter @celtics. 
Wow, that game was something...

After easily one of the worst Celtics starts to a game I have ever seen, Boston went on to play catch up all night long, eventually resulting in a loss to the San Antonio Spurs with a final score of 129-114.
With the embarrassing loss in their last game to the hospital Washington Wizards, many expected the Celtics to bounce back strong with the return of Kemba Walker but sadly we were subjected to the exact opposite.

As a team, the Celtics shot 41.6% from the field, which is especially unacceptable when they allowed San Antonio to shoot 55.2% in the TD Garden. There wasn't really an excuse for Boston's poor shooting either as they got a lot of good looks especially early on, they just were not making them.

In his return from illness, Kemba Walker looked a bit rusty tonight scoring just 6 points on 50% shooting. In his defense, just as the Celtics started to get going and looking like themselves he was egregiously ejected by young referee Evan Scott after Walker was laid out by Spurs big man LaMarcus Aldridge and there was no whistle. It was said that Walker was on a minutes restriction tonight anyways, but with the Celtics finally cutting the Spurs' lead to 7 after an impressive run in the third quarter who knows if Walker might have seen a few extra minutes out there had he not been thrown out for such a ridiculous reason.
Gordon Hayward had a very quiet first half before making a little bit of noise late in the game. He lead the team in scoring with 18 points on 50% shooting with 3 rebounds and 3 assists. He also shot a game-high 57% from three hitting 4 out of his 7 attempts.

On what NBCSports Boston deemed "Marcus Smart Night," Marcus Smart had 12 total points and 5 assists in 24 minutes of play, shooting a poor 28.6% from three hitting just 2 of his 7 attempts.

Both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum had trouble playing consistently on offense throughout the night. Brown had 16 points to go along with 3 rebounds and 2 steals, while Tatum had 14 points with 6 rebounds and 3 assists. The duo started to get going in the second half, but after the Walker ejection the Celtics just looked dead out there and all momentum was lost.
As I mentioned before, thanks to the Celtics horrendous start we were forced to play a tenous and repetitive game of catch up that was just unbearable to watch. While the Walker ejection was ridiculous, that was not the reason the Celtics were embarrassed on their home court tonight. The Spurs just got whatever they wanted on offense, and looked pretty good on defense as well. The star of the show was shooting guard DeMar DeRozan, who scored 30 points on an impressive 58.8% shooting percentage from the field.

With Joel Embiid officially out tomorrow night for the marquee Sixers vs Celtics matchup at 7 p.m. eastern time, let's hope that the C's can somehow snap out of this skid and return to form with a win.

Check out the full box score of tonight's game here, as well as a video of the game's (limited) top plays down below.


You can follow Thomas Desmond on Twitter @td_654.