The Aftermath of the Celtics Collapse

Although it's only the second game of the season, it's never good to surrender the game after leading by 22 points in the third quarter. It was eerily similar to game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals. The Lakers were down 13 to the Celtics and they tore the hearts out of everyone in Boston by coming back and winning the game.


In the aftermath of blowing the huge lead against the Milwaukee Bucks, veteran forward Gerald Wallace, who has bounced around the NBA in his career and is now on the Celtics, had some thoughts about his team's performance. “We got selfish,” Wallace said. “Instead of worrying about winning the ball game, we were more worried about our stats and getting points. It showed. We went from a team that was together and moving and playing together in the first half to a team that was five individuals out on the court, everyone playing for themselves, and it showed on the defensive end.”

Although Wallace historically has a knack for playing himself and not the team, he couldn't have said anything better. He's one-hundred percent correct on all levels: his teammates were selfish. But was the end result of the game only because of the selfishness? No. The reason why they lost was because they simply don't have enough firepower and their rookie coach didn't know what to do when Milwaukee started to cut the lead.

It was obviously apparent that the overall talent on this Celtics team is the worst it has been in years, especially without Rondo. The best player in the game for Boston was rookie center Vitor Faverani who had been picked up from overseas in the offseason. Faverani ended the game with 12 points, 18 rebounds, and 6 blocked shots, but he disappeared in the second half. Brandon Bass also had a solid performance with 17 points and 9 points but he couldn't make any of his 4 contested shots in crunch time.

Brad Stevens, who has a lot of potential as a coach in the NBA, struggled to get his team under control and rally the troops during the game last night. A veteran coach would probably have gotten one of his players more involved in the offense by drawing up a play to get an easy bucket and calm down his team. But Stevens let his guys play and that strategy obviously didn't play out the way he wanted too.

On the bright side, although the Celtics are 0-2, it's good in the NBA if you're very good or very bad, nothing in the middle. If Boston is very bad this year, then they will probably be very good next year because the 2014 NBA draft will be loaded with young talent like Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Marcus Smart, and Glenn Robinson III.

So hopefully, the Celtics will either right the ship quickly, or they continue losing and teams like the Bobcats and the 76ers continue winning.