The Boston Celtics Deal With Home Crowd Boos As Dream Start Becomes A Nightmare

For the moment, the “M-V-P” chants at TD Garden have been partially replaced by boos. When the Boston Celtics fell behind by as many as 30 points in a 117-112 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, the crowd understandably turned on the home team. While they might not be as bad as their recent 1-5 run suggests, the Celtics are also not as good as their 21-5 record to begin the NBA season made them appear to be.

“We got booed, you never want to do that,” Jayson Tatum, who scored 41 points to help make the game’s results more respectable, said after the loss. “Rightfully so. But it’s all about how we bounce back. There’s literally nothing we can do right now to change what happened.”

The boos weren’t just about their performance in this particular game, as frustrating as it was. They were more of a reflection of a dream start to the season that has, without warning, become a nightmare. The Celtics’ 125-98 blowout win over the Phoenix Suns on the road earlier this month felt like a statement victory at the time but is looking more and more like an aberration.

Once again it was the Golden State Warriors who brought the team back to earth by beating them 123-107 in a high-profile NBA Finals rematch. Since then, the Celtics have won just a single game, one against the Los Angeles Lakers where they managed to blow a 20-point lead in regulation and needed an overtime collapse by their opponents to clinch victory. As it turns out, Boston’s struggles weren’t just due to Al Horford’s absence.

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Now, some of this has been simple regression to the mean. The Celtics were playing over their head early on, relying on unsustainable offensive production to cover for a noticeable decline in defensive intensity compared to last year. While that has started to come around—before Wednesday’s game the Celtics had climbed into the league’s Top 10 defenses list—it has been at the same time that Boston’s shots have stopped falling.

Maybe the hot start also papered over the reality that these Celtics were dealing with a sudden change in leadership. Joe Mazzulla was part of Ime Udoka’s coaching staff last year, so there has been some continuation after his predecessor’s shocking suspension, but there are obvious differences between the two head coaches’ styles. For starters, the team could still be adjusting to Mazzulla’s tendency to hold on to his timeouts and forcing his players to play through adversity.

It’s just strange that this adjustments would be happening now rather than at the start of the season. It’s also troubling that the Celtics’ struggles have corresponded to the return of center Robert Williams into the mix, especially given that the team’s major weakness heading into the season was their thinness at the big man position.

Of course, Williams is returning from offseason surgery (and looked solid during the Celtics’ loss to the Pacers). It’s to be expected that it would take more than three games for him to return to form. No, whatever is going on with the Celtics is a team-wide problem and one that can no longer just be dismissed as a poor stretch of games.

The question now is whether this is something that this Celtics roster can fix on their own or if it is something that requires action from the front office. The NBA trade deadline is February 9, which gives Boston time to wait and see if the Celtics start once again resembling who they were at the start of the season. If not, it might be time for them to start contemplating making a significant personnel move or two, a possibility that seemed unthinkable just weeks ago.