BOSTON — The Boston Celtics have been in a slump for nearly a month now, and Kristaps Porzingis isn’t pleased with the team’s effort amidst their struggles. The Celtics big man gave a brutally honest assessment of the team on Wednesday night, following a brutal road loss to the Raptors in Toronto.
Wednesday night’s 110-97 defeat was a new low for the Celtics this season. Everyone was healthy and in the lineup for Boston, and the team was rested after having two nights off since they barely escaped with a home win over the 10-win Pelicans on Sunday.
But the Celtics were a no-show for much of the contest, and lost to a team that will be in the running for the top overall pick in a few months. Boston started slow north of the border and fell behind 15-5 before briefly righting the ship, but then collapsed in the second half for a second straight game.
The Celtics barely survived their collapse Sunday night against the Pelicans. They were not so fortunate on Wednesday, as they let the 10-win Raptors completely take over the game out of the break.
Toronto shot a blistering 73 percent in the third quarter to turn a two-point halftime lead into a six-point edge heading into the fourth. In the final frame, the Celtics mustered just 15 points to let Toronto pull away for an easy victory over the defending champs.
After the game, Porzingis vented about the team’s recent stretch.
“I thought we had no spirit, with no personality today as a team,” said Porzingis. “It’s weird to say. We have high character people but things are not going our way. We’re a step slow here, there. Just no spirit, no personality.”
Porzingis had every right to speak up as he was one of the lone bright spots for Boston from the loss, hitting seven of his 11 shots — including 4-of-5 from three-point land — for 18 points on the night. Payton Pritchard added 20 off the bench as he continues his sixth-man push, but the rest of the team was an absolute mess offensively.
Jayson Tatum flirted with a triple-double with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists, but it took a lot of shots for him to get to that meager point total. He was just 5-of-15 from the floor and didn’t take a shot in the fourth quarter. Jaylen Brown was a dreadful 4-of-16 and scored just 10 points on the night.
A 9-of-31 night from your two stars isn’t going to lead to many victories. Brown was just 1-of-7 in the fourth quarter. To make matters worse, Derrick White was just 2-of-9 for the evening (and 1-of-7 from deep) and is hitting just 36 percent of his shots in six games since the calendar flipped to 2025.
This came against a team the Celtics beat by 54 points just a few weeks ago. But Boston’s struggles Wednesday were a microcosm of what has been plaguing the team over the last month.
Celtics in a slump
Consistency has been Boston’s biggest issue as of late. The Celtics are just 7-7 over their last 14 games, with four of those losses on their home court. They lost just four games at TD Garden all of last season.
The Celtics have shot just 45.6 percent overall (23rd in the NBA) and 34.2 percent from downtown (25th) since Dec. 19.
This is the first real rut that Porzingis has experienced with the Celtics. He said it’s up to them to snap this funk, but they cannot simply expect better results. Porzingis said that believing these issues will just fix themselves will lead to the team developing bad habits.
“I think we just individually have to look at ourselves like, where we can improve? What we need to do better? Are we fit? Are we this? Are we feeling good? Are we locked in mentally? And then try to fix some of the stuff that we have going on,” he said.
“But it’s not the end of the world,” added Porzingis. “Every team has ups and downs, it’s just that it feels like s— right now and we played some bad basketball.”
Celtics confident they can turn things around
While Porzingis is frustrated with how the team is playing as of late, it’s clear that he’s not hitting the panic button just yet. He’s confident the group will turn things around because he knows what the team is made of.
“We have high personality, high character people. Nobody is pointing fingers and stuff. We know we’ll get past this,” he said. “I know it, we know it. But we have to start playing better. We can’t keep cruising and expect to just turn it up toward the end. It’s in our hands.”
Getting through this slump together was a theme for the Celtics after Wednesday’s loss.
“We’re going through some s— right now,” Tatum said. “It’s tough, but we said after the game that we’ve got to go through it together and as best as we can stick together. Trust in one another as we always have and just show your true character
“You can’t expect things to always be easy and you can’t have enough of an expectation that it’s always supposed to go your way, because it’s not,” said head coach Joe Mazzulla. “We just have to make sure we find a way to enjoy the challenge, but make sure we do it together.”
Despite the rough patch, the Celtics are still 28-12 on the season and sit in second place in the Eastern Conference. But they’re 6.5 games behind the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers, and the third-place New York Knicks are now just two games back of Boston. The Celtics know they better get back on track soon.
They’ll look to right the ship with back-to-back home games against the Orlando Magic (23-19) and the Atlanta Hawks (21-19) on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Boston will then hit the road for a tough four-game swing against the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Mavericks.
Matt GeaganMatthew Geagan is a sports producer for CBS Boston. He has been part of the WBZ sports team for nearly 20 years. He moved over to the web in 2012 and has covered all the highs (and a few lows) in Boston sports.
