The Boston Celtics held a 20-point second-half lead over the New York Knicks in Game 1. They lost 108-105 in overtime. Yikes.
The Celtics let the Knicks storm back and win a game that should have been put away easily enough. Selfish play, mind-numbing shot selection and questionable toughness were at the root of it all.
So yeah, it's time to play the blame game. What else can you do after a 20-point meltdown?
3. Kristaps Porzingis
Kristaps Porzingis played 13 scoreless minutes before exiting Monday's game with what the Celtics described as an "illness." We don't know what the issue is, though it may be related to the mystery ailment that has dogged the center for months.
We all take sick days some of the time. It's just that most of us don't have to miss playoff games to do so. I'm sympathetic to the fact that Porzingis is dealing with something. He clearly wasn't 100 percent before his exit. Trying to stay in the game may have been counterproductive.
Even so, the Celtics really missed their big man. They lacked an inside presence without him, settling for playing most of the game from outside the arc. The results were disastrous.
If Porzingis were injured in the more traditional sense, would fans be blaming him for the loss? Maybe not. But he is being paid nearly $30 million to be that inside presence for Boston. If he's not there, he's going to bear some of the fault, fair or not.
2. Joe Mazzulla
Some blown leads are somewhat beyond a coach's control. If the players don't hit their shots or commit costly turnovers, what can you do? Right? That's not the case with a 20-point blown lead though. That one falls squarely on the shoulders of the coach, no matter the circumstances. In this case, Joe Mazzulla.
I don't care if your players are in the worst shooting slump of their lives, giving up that kind of a lead on your home floor takes true coaching malpractice.
The Celtics missed 45 triples, the most in NBA Playoff history. That means Mazzulla stood by and watched as his team jacked up 60 3-pointers, far too many of them contested. That means Mazzulla's guidance on shot selection was thoroughly ignored. Or, as seems to be the case, he was totally fine with letting his players make bad decision after bad decision in the second half. And that's so much worse.
When asked about shot selection, Mazzulla said he was "for the most part" satisfied.
I'm sorry, what? Mazzulla's team gave the Knicks an opening to take back the game by abandoning ball movement and taking bad shots. If they had hit even slightly below average, they would have won the game comfortably. After all, they outrebounded the Knicks and should have benefitted from New York shooting just 54.8 percent from the charity stripe. They more or less matched their opponents in points in the paint, fast break points and points off of turnovers.
Instead, they were horrifically inefficient. The Celtics were 19-of-37 from inside the arc, that's a perfectly respectable 51 percent. They were 15-of-60 from distance, just 25 percent. We don't have to think very hard about why they lost.
1. Jayson Tatum
As much as the head coach got wrong, we need to be honest here. He shouldn't have had to rein in Jayson Tatum. He is 27 years old, an NBA veteran, a six-time All-Star, a world champion. He's a winner. He knows what it takes to win...so what happened?
Tatum was responsible for his share of terrible shots. His last five attempts in regulation were all misses from distance.
I get the idea of shooting yourself out of a slump, but the way to do that is to find ways to get open. Make your shots easier and they're more likely to go in. Drive to the basket and kick it out for others to benefit. Or draw contact and get to the foul line. There are a million little things Tatum could have done to dig his team out of the hole. He played hero ball instead. Without the shots falling, that turned him into the villain.
Now, the Celtics have one path forward: Learn from these mistakes, correct the bad habits and even up the series before it heads to New York. The plus side is this: Having the most collectively boneheaded performances of the season, Boston only lost by three points in overtime.