The Boston Celtics are in deep trouble now and they only have themselves to blame for it.
They put in an embarrassing performance to lose Game 5 115-103 and are now down 3-2 to the Philadelphia 76ers in the Conference Semifinals. In the third quarter with their team down 88-69, the home crowd started booing them.
Celtics got booed at the end of the 3rd quarter in the TD Garden after going down 19 points
We’ll see if this motivates them in the 4th quarter pic.twitter.com/ZIsZF7Oqz2
— Jake “Iggy” Ignaszewski (@JakeIggy) May 10, 2023
The Celtics did cut into the lead a little bit in the fourth quarter but the game was never really close and they are now on the brink of being eliminated. Jayson Tatum had 36 points for them here but shot just 11-27 from the field while Jaylen Brown had 24 points but only took 16 shots and made 9 of them. He had vowed to take on a bigger role after Game 4 but wasn’t able to do it here.
What makes the situation they are in even worse, is that Joel Embiid is dealing with an injury and the Sixers have still managed to go ahead in this series. The Celtics looked to have wrestled control after winning Games 2 and 3 but these last two defeats have undone all that good work.
The Celtics Were In This Exact Position Last Year
What might give the Celtics belief that they can turn things around, is that they were in this exact same position last year. They lost Game 5 at home to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Conference Semifinals in 2022 but managed to win Games 6 and 7 to advance. This iteration, however, doesn’t look nearly as good as the one last year. For one, the Celtics were a great defensive team under Ime Udoka but that hasn’t been the case under Joe Mazzulla.
Tatum isn’t playing as well as he was at that time either and this team really hasn’t looked right all season. They had periods where they looked far and away the best team in the league, only to then have a string of terrible results. The loss at home in Game 5 against the Atlanta Hawks in the first round was perhaps an indicator that they aren’t as great as we’d thought, but all is not lost just yet. The Celtics can make amends for this by winning the next two games but the question is can they?
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