What's wrong with the Boston Celtics?
BOSTON -- The Boston Celtics put up another dud on Thursday night, losing to the Lakers in Los Angeles by 21 points. It was the team's most lopsided loss of the season, and the latest no-show for the Celtics in a disappointing and uninspiring stretch that has spanned nearly two months.
It has a lot of people wondering, "What is wrong with the Boston Celtics?" Is this just a midseason malaise by a team preserving itself for another deep playoff run? Is it a delayed championship hangover by the defending champs?
Repeating in the NBA isn't easy these days. There's a reason no team has gone back-to-back since the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018. The defending champs have a target on their backs every time they take the floor, and usually get hit with an opponent's best effort.
So far this season, the Celtics have mostly risen to the occasion. They're 31-14 right now, so it's not like they've completely fallen off a cliff.
But the effort has been severely lacking over the last seven weeks, and Boston's once-feared offense has gone in the tank. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have not been playing to their full potential, and something feels incredibly off with the team's offense.
The All-Star break is still three weeks away, so the Celtics have plenty of time to snap out of their funk and get back on track. But we're more than halfway through the season, and Boston's struggles are getting harder to dismiss.
Celtics stuck in mediocrity
Remember when the Celtics started the season 19-4? They're just 12-10 since a Dec. 6 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Celtics have lost six of their 11 home games during the stretch, after losing four at home all of last season. That includes a fourth-quarter collapse against the Bulls, a blowout loss to the lowly 76ers on Christmas Day, and another blown lead leading overtime loss to the Hawks.
Blowing leads and falling apart late in games has been a troubling trend for this team. They had a chance to beat the Thunder in Oklahoma City but were trounced, 29-12, in the fourth quarter. They beat the Clippers in Los Angeles on Wednesday, but needed overtime despite being up by four points with 19 seconds left. The Celtics have taken their foot off the gas late in games way too often this season.
Boston is just 5-5 since that OKC collapse. Back-to-back wins to start this current road trip marked the team's first two-game winning streak since the calendar flipped to 2025.
Consistency has been a massive issue, with Boston just 7-5 in January. All four of the team's double-digit losses this season have come in that stretch.
The Celtics offense has tanked
The Boston offense has cratered over the last 10 games, with the Celtics ranking 20th in offensive efficiency. Over that stretch, they've drained just 43.7 percent of their shots and only 33.2 percent of their three-point attempts, ranking 25th and 26th, respectively.
Boston's four lowest-scoring efforts have all come over the last 10 games, the only times this season the team has failed to hit 100 points. This falls on both the players and head coach Joe Mazzulla.
Tatum has hit 43 percent of his shots over the last 10 games, but he's connected on just 29.5 percent of his threes. Brown has hit 41.7 percent from the floor, but just 30 percent from three.
Most concerning though has been the lack of offense from the Boston backcourt of Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. Both are incredibly important to the team's overall success, but they've both been in a massive funk.
White got off to a spectacular start, but is down to 43 percent shooting for the season. He's hitting just 37 percent from downtown. White's shooting has cratered over his last nine games, as he's hit just 32.6 percent overall and 23.9 percent from deep.
Holiday's three-point shot has been missing all season. After hitting 43 percent of his threes last season, when he was a dead-eye from the corner, the veteran has hit just 34.9 percent from downtown this season. It looks like their summer in Paris for the Olympics might be catching up to both White and Holiday.
It was unrealistic to expect this year's Celtics to be a better offensive team than last season's record-setting squad. But if the team wants to turn things around, it has to start shooting the ball a lot better than it has in 2025.
Loss to Lakers the latest Celtics dud
As for Thursday night, losing to the Lakers is never acceptable for the Celtics, but it was slightly expected. After playing a needless overtime against the Clippers the night before, the team was obviously a bit gassed against LeBron James and company. But the Celtics have no one to blame but themselves for nearly blowing it against the Clippers.
Kristaps Porzingis was back in the lineup Thursday night after sitting out Wednesday's game, and the team had the offense flow through him in the first quarter. Porzingis was excellent throughout the game with a team-high 22 points off 9-of-16 shooting, and he was 5-of-8 in the opening frame. But the rest of the team was just 4-of-16 in the first and 3-of-10 from three, as the Lakers built an 11-point lead.
"You can give them credit, but I just think we came out flat," Brown said after the loss. "We just kind of looked tired. Maybe you could say just the game from last night going into overtime carried over, but on both sides of the floor, they just had more energy than us. And we tried to like ramp it up in the third quarter. It just wasn't there tonight."
Outside of Brown's 17 points off 7-of-19 shooting, the rest of the Boston offense was a mess on Thursday. Tatum took a season-low 12 shots, which simply is not acceptable. He hit just five of those shots for 16 points, but the ball needs to be in his hands more. Boston's backcourt of Holiday (back after missing Wednesday) and White were just 2-of-11, with each hitting just one shot. Payton Pritchard was 2-of-12 off the bench.
The Celtics shot just 38.5 percent (35-of-91) and 34.1 percent of their threes, connecting on only 14 of their 41 shots from deep.
Boston had a chance to build momentum in the third after they cut Los Angeles' lead to 12 points. But the Celtics went over four-and-a-half minutes without a point, going 0-of-6 from the floor. They pulled down two offensive rebounds on one possession, but missed all three of their shots. Tatum and Brown both came up empty on trips to the free-throw line during that stretch, which would have cut their deficit to eight points.
The Celtics still managed to outscore the Lakers in the third, 20-16, but Los Angeles scored the first nine points of the fourth and the blowout was back on. Los Angeles led by as many as 28 in the final frame.
Boston is now 2-1 on its West Coast swing, with an NBA Finals rematch with the Luka Doncic-less Mavericks in Dallas up next on Saturday.
Why we shouldn't panic about the Boston Celtics -- yet
That was a lot of doom and gloom for a 31-14 team, which is the third-best record in the NBA. The Celtics are also the only team in the league to rank in the top five in both offensive efficiency (third at 118.4) and defensive efficiency (fifth at 109.6) this season.
And the team can still kick some serious behind, as we saw in their 40-point win over the Warriors on Monday, a 27-point win over the Magic a week ago, and a 37-point win over the Pacers on Dec. 27. The Celtics went 3-1 on their previous West Coast swing, and can do that again with a win over the Mavs in Dallas Saturday.
So don't go breaking the glass and smashing that panic button just yet. The Celtics can absolutely turn this around and despite these current struggles, they remain a favorite to be the last team standing this summer.
But the concern is that the Celtics have been consistently inconsistent for nearly two months, and are developing some bad habits in the process. A turnaround might not be as easy as flipping a switch, especially with the Eastern Conference much more competitive than it was last season. The Cavaliers are the cream of the crop right now, the Knicks are nipping at Boston's heels, and the Bucks have turned things around with nine wins in their last 10 games.
The Celtics may see that they have a tougher road ahead this summer and have put things in cruise control during the middle of the regular season. Previous defending champs have done the same.
But with each no-show or blown lead, the confidence dwindles just a little more. The hope -- the need -- for better basketball is growing. The remedy would be a big stretch of winning, where the Celtics win five or six straight and stretch that into a a dozen or so wins over a 15-game span.
The Celtics remain confident in themselves, as they should. Porzingis said he's getting his rhythm back and believes the team is getting there as well.
"Nights like this happen. It happened last year, and it's happening this year a little bit more, but I don't think we're too far from where we need to be," the Boston big man said Thursday night. "We just have to keep our heads down, keep on working, and I believe we'll peak at the right moment."
They put it all together last season, and remain optimistic they'll get back on track this year.
"I'm not concerned, but it's a part of just navigating the year," Brown said. "Anything can happen. We just need to finish through the All-Star break strong and then get ready to gear up going in towards the playoffs and just continue to stay with it."
"I feel like we're still the best team out there. We've just got to put it all together," added Brown.
We're still a long way from the summer, but it would be real nice if the Celtics could put it all together sooner rather than later.
