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Celtics Saddled with Fourth Quarter Struggles During Slump
With their 89-85 loss to the Houston Rockets Wednesday night, the Boston Celtics have now dropped six of their last eight and their first home game since November 14. Maybe the basketball gods aren't shining so bright on them during the January doldrums, but one thing has been lacking throughout what has become a bonafide slump: fourth-quarter offense.
The numbers tell a simple story. In their last six losses, the Celtics are averaging just 18.5 points in the final stanza -- 16 against the Lakers, 17 against the Warriors and 20 against the Knicks. They did manage 25 Tuesday night at Charlotte, but were then outscored 17-9 in overtime. The worst came Wednesday, when the Rockets put up 18 to the Celtics' 11.
Some of Boston's measly fourth-quarter offering can be chalked up to shooting 22.2% from the field, but the Celtics had hovered around 50% for most of the first half. The percentage plummeted because the shots were jumpers, and one thing that will always be true in basketball is that points in the paint are easier to make, but the attempts in the key are harder to earn.
"Sometimes Coach says we shoot too many jump shots, get jump shot happy and don't look to the post that much," Leon Powe said. "Our team, we can post up and when we do we're very good. We just gotta go out there and try to play with a balance."
The balance was not there against Houston. For the game, the Celtics had 18 points in the paint, and only two for the final quarter on a wide-open Rajon Rondo layup. The bucket was made possible by a Kevin Garnett post-up, exactly the type of play that had been missing from the arsenal.
"We talked about playing their Big Three, and we wanted to make them take jump shots," Rockets Coach Rick Adelman said. "We didn't want to have them get the ball where they could get lay-ups."
No reason, figuratively or literally, was larger than Yao Ming (26 points), who was largely responsible for both the Rockets' 36 inside points and the space that made their 9-of-19 shooting from downtown that much easier.
Yet, despite a stagnated offense, these are the Celtics, and discussions will always return to defense.
"Overall I thought we got the looks we wanted but that's when the offense and the defense comes into play," Doc Rivers said. "You've got to get stops. And what happens if you don't, then you put more pressure on your offense. So you know, clearly at the end of games, last three or four minutes, you've got to play great defense and we didn't."
The Celtics still got enough stops to hold a team scoring 96.94 points per game to 89. They also got 12 points off 14 Houston turnovers. But the points were not, and have not, been there in the fourth. Even when the defensive kinks get ironed out, there remain some on offense that can't be neglected. It's as simple as the numbers.
"Eleven points in the fourth quarter is not going to win a lot of games for you," Rivers said.
