Malcolm Brogdon said after the Celtics’ win over the Spurs on Sunday that their goal over the final stretch of the regular season is to reclaim the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Two days later, they played like they didn’t want it, and their chances of grabbing the top seed now look slim.
With a critical matchup against the first-place Bucks looming on Thursday in Milwaukee, the Celtics were caught overlooking the lottery-bound Wizards. The C’s produced one of their worst defensive performances of the season and continued their alarming theme of not getting up for inferior opponents in an ugly 130-111 loss.
The Celtics’ chances of earning the No. 1 seed aren’t completely gone, but are highly unlikely after this loss. They fell to 2.5 games back of the Bucks – who could push it to three games on Wednesday night in Indiana – with just six games remaining.
Boston looked like it was turning a corner after three consecutive dominant efforts in wins over the Kings, Pacers and Spurs, but on Tuesday returned to the bad habits that have summed up why the Celtics coughed up the No. 1 seed and are in the position they’re in.
The Wizards were missing their top two players – Bradley Beal and Kyle Kuzma – but that didn’t stop them from running over the Celtics, who had no answers defensively. Kristaps Porzingis dominated with 32 points and Deni Avdija added 25 points.
Jayson Tatum scored 28 points in his return from a one-game absence and Marcus Smart kept the Celtics afloat with four 3-pointers in the first half. But the Celtics shot just 11-for-44 from 3-point range and were atrocious defensively with almost zero resistance defensively. They fell behind by 13 at halftime and it only got worse out of the break as the Wizards ran away in the third quarter and went ahead by as many as 23.
The Celtics trailed by 22 with 9:21 left in the fourth quarter when Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla – who has usually been reluctant to pull starters even in blowout wins – made an entire line shift and put Grant Williams, Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard, Mike Muscala and Luke Kornet in the game. That group gave the Celtics some energy as it cut the deficit to 12 but it ultimately proved fleeting.
