BOSTON — At some point, you would expect the Boston Celtics to take this kind of thing personally.

And by personally, we don’t mean individually.

You have to figure they’re tired of having sand kicked in their collective face, of having former players on television shaking their heads at the utter disappointment their season has been.

Sure, there are a number of teams that would be more than happy to be sitting here with a 38-26 record, but none of them were the overwhelming preseason favorite to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA finals.

And none of them were such willing victims of a home invasion as were the Celtics on Sunday. It’s not like the Houston Rockets need much help or prodding to produce the kind of worse-than-it-looks 115-104 beating they executed at TD Garden, but still Celtics’ complicity was unnerving.

The sight of James Harden rolling past flat-footed defenders for uncontested layups was enough to make the Garden gathering boo the Celtics well before halftime. Houston led 65-43 at the half – and maintained a 23-point lead after three quarters – before the Celtics closed the gap to seven points in the fourth quarter.

“The game was lost in the first 30 minutes,” said Boston Coach Brad Stevens, “and, uh, that’s that.”

The defensive lapses that led to the easy Houston points were hard to take. The Celtics knew what they were up against here. Two days earlier, Jaylen Brown said, “If we’ve got the right attitude, I’m not even worried about it. If we’ve got the right attitude, we can beat anybody. If we’ve got a lazy attitude or an attitude like we don’t want to play, we’re going to lose. Simple.”

For the first half and a chunk of the third quarter, it was clearly the latter.

“Five guys have to play together exceptionally hard and on a string just to have a chance to get a stop against Houston, and that’s the same way against Golden State,” said Stevens, referencing the Celtics’ first stop on a trip that starts Tuesday. “You have to play exceptionally hard and together and on a string and leave no doubt on every possession just to have a chance to get a stop. That’s how good the players are in the league. So when we don’t have that, you’re not going to stop very many people.”

The coach was asked about tweaks to the rotation after this one, but if the Celtics keep performing in such a disconcerted manner, it might be a good idea for the team to issue those “Hello, my name is…” name-tags so they can introduce themselves to one another.

“We have to play better,” Stevens said. “Individually and collectively, we have to play better. As I’ve said many times, I have to coach better.”

The final slap across the face came with 50 seconds left and the Celtics holding only the smallest morsel of hope, down by nine points. Marcus Smart inbounded the ball from the frontcourt right sideline after a timeout, but Jayson Tatum did not come as aggressively as needed to the ball. Houston’s P.J. Tucker did, stealing it to add a little ice to the caustic cocktail.

“We didn’t expect to be in this position, but it’s just one of those things that we need to work through it as a team,” said Al Horford, who scored 19 points. “It’s a commitment to winning and being consistent with it, and that’s been our biggest problem – consistency on defense and offense.”

Consistency, sure. But also the lack of fortitude to stand up in a timely manner to an opponent who’s pushing them around. At some point, you’d figure they’d have had enough. But we haven’t reached that point yet.

Copy the Story Link