Breaking Down the Celtics’ Surprising Defeat to the Cavs: 3 Key Takeaways

Up until about the nine-minute mark of the fourth quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night, the Boston Celtics had been on a roll. The C’s had won their past 11 games, and held a 22-point lead over the Cavs as they inched closer to making that 12 straight wins. But then Dean Wade caught fire, and Cleveland pulled off the biggest fourth-quarter rally of the season to somehow escape with a 105-104 win.

The optics of this loss for the Celtics aren’t particularly great. Typically when you throw away a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter, it’s never a good sign, but the way in which it happened was eerily familiar to past Celtics teams. Boston has been so good this season that it was fair to believe that losses like this simply weren’t a part of who they are. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Even with this loss, the C’s are still comfortably the best team in the NBA, and barring a complete collapse, they will enter the postseason as the one seed in the Eastern Conference. But a loss like this will force the team to reassess where they stand, so let’s do the same and take a look at three quick thoughts after Boston’s worst game of the season.

Is there reason to be concerned after the Celtics loss to the Cavs?

As previously noted above, there’s not much that looked good in this game for the Celtics. While they dominated early, they completely fell apart down the stretch, allowing Wade of all people to catch fire from behind the arc. Boston still had a chance to come out on top at the end of the game, but they ultimately were unable to do so.

Throughout the course of an 82-game season, losses like this happen. Is Wade, who averages a mere 5.4 points per game, going to score 23 points every time he plays the Celtics? No. But sometimes guys get hot, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Boston’s offense obviously faltered, but it wasn’t as if they were unable to generate good looks. Shots were falling on one end of the court, and not on the other.

It’s also worth noting that the C’s have a legitimate gripe with the late-game officiating, as Jayson Tatum was believed to have drawn a foul on a potential game-winning shot, only to have the call overturned. The refs didn’t give Boston any extra time on the clock, and then said they didn’t call a timeout before time expired on the ensuing jump ball. Boston shouldn’t have lost this game, but even the best teams slip up from time to time, so there’s no reason to panic, even if this was a particularly awful result.

Kristaps Porzingis proves his value to the Celtics in crunch time

If there was one positive to take away from this game, it was how Kristaps Porzingis looked like the only player capable of winning this game for Boston down the stretch. Brad Stevens and the front office went out and acquired Porzingis this past offseason with the intent of having him be an option the Celtics can turn to when they need offense, and he very nearly saved them from a catastrophic defeat.

After Cleveland cut the deficit to three points with about four minutes in the fourth, anything good that happened the rest of the way out for Boston came from Porzingis. He immediately hit a tough midrange jumper that probably should have been an and-one shot, dished out a beautiful pass to Jrue Holiday to cut the C’s deficit to two, and then broke up an alley oop attempt before racing down the floor to convert an and-one layup that gave Boston a one-point lead with just over 30 seconds left.

The biggest issue with the refs reversed call on Tatum’s potential game-winning shot is that if they didn’t blow the whistle, Porzingis had a wide-open putback layup that would have essentially ended the game. Boston didn’t get the result they wanted, but it was extremely reassuring to see Porzingis step up in the clutch and nearly help the Celtics avoid the type of loss that had been so destructive for them in past seasons.

Are the Celtics peaking too early?

Prior to this loss, the Celtics had been the hottest team in the NBA. Heck, they still might be, especially if they can bounce back and pick up a win against the defending-champion Denver Nuggets on Thursday night. But even amid their best stretch of basketball this season, the question lingering on my mind was whether or not this team was peaking too soon.

The concept of peaking too soon is something that seems silly, but it can be the banana peel in the road that causes the best teams to slip up. Look around at other sports leagues for examples. The New England Patriots were so dominant in the NFL during their dynastic run because they always turned things up a notch in the playoffs. The Boston Bruins in the NHL last season were the exact opposite, as they peaked too soon before falling apart in the postseason.

It’s too soon to tell if the same fate is in store for the Celtics. They have been so good all season long, but we have seen this team get the rug pulled out from underneath them time and again over the past few years. They have been fantastic when it comes to bouncing back from horrendous losses this season, but Joe Mazzulla is going to have to find a way to keep this team focused on the big picture if they want to be playing their best basketball come the postseason.