Boston's little green men

Red Meat For Mushy Moderates

Giants among men, except when they’re not. -Wikipedia

I’m not in the habit of writing at length about sports, but after the dismal performance last night of my favorite basketball team — the one I’ve been rooting for since I first learned to bounce a ball — I am hereby compelled to unburden myself.

I will give the Boston Celtics credit for clawing their way back to force a game seven against the Heat. That, however, was the easy part. After all, teams as talented as the Celtics rarely get swept in a best-of-seven play-off series. But winning that final game to become the first team in NBA history to overcome a 3-0 deficit and take the series was the hard part. And this team — the one that, on paper, at least — had the best collection of talent in the NBA, couldn’t get the job done.

It was an epic failure that should prompt a great deal of soul searching and reassessment. Yes, star forward Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle on the first play of the game and was hobbled for the remaining 48 minutes. But Celtics fan should not comfort themselves by rationalizing Tatum’s injury as a valid excuse for the drubbing. If anything, Tatum at half speed should have prodded his teammates to up their games.

But Jaylen Brown, the team’s second best asset, scored only 19 points on the night, went 5 for 13 from the floor and was only 1 for 4 in threes. Derrick White, the hero of game six, did up his game by driving to the basket Tatum-style, but he couldn’t do it alone. The team missed its first 12 three-point attempts.

At the half, TNT analyst Charles Barkley offered some pithy analysis:

Or as Sopan Deb of the New York Times put it, “Very few leading contenders for a championship have vacillated as wildly from night to night, from dominant to dominated, as the Celtics had this season.”

“We failed,’’ Brown acknowledged in a post-game interview. “I failed. We let the whole city down.’’

Okay, at least he’s not in denial. In clinical terms, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. According to the Boston Globe, Brown is eligible for a five-year, $295-million extension that could make him the NBA’s highest-paid player. With last night’s woefully inadequate performance, however, Brown made it less likely the Celtics will make such a commitment. Or they might re-sign him and then trade him.

Brad Stevens, president of basketball operations for the Celtics, has his work cut out for him now. Instead of winning a championship and simply trying to keep a great team together, he’ll need to make some big changes to restore the confidence the Celtics’ ardent fans need to have in their beloved team.

The most obvious place to start is with the coach, 34-year-old Joe Mazzulla, who was seemingly plucked from obscurity when he was elevated to the top coaching spot after Head Coach Ime Udoka was suspended back in September and subsequently fired for having an inappropriate intimate relationship with a subordinate (we can only guess what that was; use your imagination).

The “kid coach,” as Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy calls Mazzulla, had been a Celtics assistant for two seasons. His only head coaching experience had been two years at Division II Fairmont State in West Virginia.

But there could be big changes in the Celtics coaching staff, as some of Mazzulla’s assistants might leave to work for Udoka, who is now the head coach of the Houston Rockets. Shockingly, NBA Insider reports that Mazzulla is expected to remain as Celtics head coach. Say what?

They also need a true point guard since White and Marcus Smart hardly fit the bill. Expect big changes. This could be the Celts’ busiest off-season in years. I’m channeling a famous poet from Vermont, but I think it’s safe to say the Celtics have miles to go and promises to keep.

P.S.

Legendary Celtics center Bill Russell, the winningest player in all of basketball, died last summer. As Shaughnessy reported, Russell’s Celtics went 10-0 in seventh games in the playoffs. What would he think of these little men dressed in green?