One thing isn’t fairly proper in Boston.
The Celtics, who had been mired in a 3-0 gap within the Japanese Convention finals in opposition to the Miami Warmth earlier than successful Sport 4 on Tuesday to maintain their season alive, appear to have points that go deeper than the flailing on-the-court product we noticed within the first three video games of the sequence.
“I’ve had a supply inform me up to now week that this Celtics group seems like a gaggle that’s uninterested in faux liking one another,” Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer and FanDuel TV additionally reported.
With starter Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown due huge extensions this offseason — and coach Joe Mazzulla feeling the warmth amid Boston’s playoff swoon — huge adjustments may very well be in retailer in Beantown it their season ends right here.
“They’ve been round one another without end, they’ve been via it earlier than,” O’Connor continued. “I believe its on the level now, particularly provided that approach they may lose this sequence in opposition to the Warmth, they’ve acquired to shake it up.
“They’ve acquired to shake it up on totally different ranges, which brings us to Jayson Tatum — he’s too passive. He seems like extra of a 1B, not a 1A, we noticed it within the Finals final 12 months in opposition to the Warriors. We’re seeing it once more proper now in opposition to the Miami Warmth. How he’s not taking these photographs within the fourth quarter blows my thoughts. Jaylen Brown lack dribbling abilities at an elite degree, he lacks management. And this brings into the query, simply actually, what does it imply? What degree are you able to attain you probably have two wings which might be you lead ball-handlers?”
Making issues worse, whereas Mazzulla guided the Celtics again to the East finals, the group is reportedly nonetheless upset over the best way his predecessor Ime Udoka was fired earlier than the season started.
On Monday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that some members of the Celtics “by no means acquired over Ime Udoka’s dismissal as head coach” from earlier this season.
Udoka was suspended for the complete season in September of 2022 and was finally fired by the franchise after he was found to have had an inappropriate intimate relationship with a group employees member.
He was not too long ago landed a brand new head teaching job with the Houston Rockets, who fired Stephen Silas in April after the group posted a 20-62 document, ending 14th out of 15 groups within the Western Convention.
Boston, a No. 2 seed, surprisingly dropped two video games to Trae Younger’s Hawks (No. 7) within the opening spherical of the playoffs after which had been in a 3-2 gap in opposition to Philadelphia within the second spherical earlier than Tatum saved his group with a 51-point recreation — essentially the most in a Sport 7 in historical past — to shut out the sequence.
