Bostonvestigation: How valid are those whispers of concern that you’re hearing about the Celtics?

Whether they’re whispers behind a wall of confidence in the back of your brain or perhaps a devil looming on your shoulder, your concerns with the Celtics probably made their presence known on Monday.

This loss against the Hawks was disgusting, I hated watching it, and I was none-too-pleased when Vit Krejci, whom I heard of for the first time yesterday, lit the Cs up for 16 points to help fuel Atlanta’s 30-point comeback.

It’s weird. The Cs have looked incredible throughout this season, yet anytime they lose a game, which only happens about 21% of the time, the fanbase loses it online. You’d think that this team had just lost five straight with some of the posts after the loss.

Yet, it doesn’t feel all that crazy. I feel it. When I see what I saw yesterday, the whispers grow a bit louder. It all comes back.

I see Bobby Portis sinking a go-ahead putback in Game 5 of the 2022 Eastern Conference Semifinals.

I see Steph Curry catching fire to snap the Cs’ NBA title hopes after they go cold in the fourth quarter.

I see Caleb Martin ending Boston’s playoff run in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

All of the same questions come back into the fold.

“Huh, it’s really going to be the same again this year, isn’t it?”

“Have they learned nothing?”

“Can they not close games?”

The two major factors that played into the collapse Monday are chronic for the Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown edition of the Celtics.

Boston’s fans definitely get some sort of PTSD anytime their squad coughs up a big lead. It sucks and is the worst way to lose a basketball game. If you combine that with the fact that they still managed to give themselves a chance to win the game but were outplayed by the 10th-place Hawks in crunch time, it stings even more.

It feels like a lot of the hardship that the Celtics have faced over the past two-and-a-half seasons has been self-inflicted, sort of like what happened in Atlanta.

Just earlier this month, Dean Wade singlehandedly brought the Cleveland Cavaliers back from the dead to beat Boston. His hot shooting erased a 22-point fourth-quarter lead from the Cs that night and set the alarms off, much like they went off on Monday.

However, the alarms don’t sound often. In the ten games between that night and last, Boston ripped off a 9-1 stretch, only losing to the reigning champion Denver Nuggets (you’re allowed to feel a certain type of way about that one, for sure).

That’s the important thing.

The Celtics have built a ton of big leads this season. In fact, they have taken 30-point leads in more games (16), than their amount of losses on the season (15). They don’t often lose them without recovering.

They even recovered in the loss to the Hawks, immediately growing the lead back to double-digits after Atlanta cut it to three in the third quarter. The problem is that they weren’t able to finish off the game when it was close.

This is a more prominent issue with this team. History would tell you that the playoffs are going to feature more tightly contested games than 30-point blowouts.

What are the Celtics going to do then? Hopefully not what we all witnessed on Monday, that’s for sure.

Boston’s offense tends to become one-dimensional in the final minutes of close games. The ball finds either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown and they are expected to generate scoring opportunities for the team.

This is fine… sometimes.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Celtics finding their “curveball” come playoff time. Right now, all it feels like we see them throw to opposing defenses is the two-seam fastball, with Tatum and Brown being those seams.

Mix it up.

Run some actions away from the ball.

Make the defense have to adjust from possession to possession.

The iso stuff actually worked a bit against the Hawks. Both Tatum and Brown managed to create points for themselves down the stretch with Tatum throwing down a monster dunk and then sinking a fadeaway and Brown getting a fader of his own to drop.

However, the Hawks were able to adjust and make things tough on both of these guys. They got Tatum to turn the ball over late and then forced Brown to settle for an awful stepback three with less than a minute to go.

If there were more layers to the late-game game plan, maybe one of the league’s worst defenses wouldn’t have been able to string together key stops against its best offense.

I’m not entirely sure how important the loss is. We’re in late March now. The Celtics have already secured the top spot in the Eastern Conference with 10 games (it was 11 when they clinched) remaining. The results don’t mean a whole lot for the remainder of the regular season. Aside from trying to lock up the NBA’s best record, Boston doesn’t have a ton to be playing for at this point.

Don’t get me wrong. I am the biggest “win every single game because you’re better than the other team” guy ever, and I think it would’ve been sick to tie the franchise record for wins in a season.

I am undoubtedly disappointed in what I watched last night, but I’m not sure it will matter in a month.

Maybe it will.

I hope not.

It certainly doesn’t change the remarkable run this season’s Celtics team has had so far.