Celtics’ 3-point woes continue in blowout loss to Lakers
The stretch of .500 basketball continues in Boston. On Thursday night, the Celtics found themselves looking up at a lopsided 117-96 score in favor of their rival Los Angeles Lakers. The Celtics win-loss purgatory is now extended to 18 games — a period where they have only strung together multiple wins twice.
Thursday’s loss comes down to the same story that has plagued the Green for the last month, they struggle to hit the three, and are unwilling to change for higher-percentage shot. Although, this time they at least looked to take more two-point shots (21-50, 42 percent), but they still attempted 41 and only made 14 (34.1 percent). They were 35-of-91 shooting, 38.5 percent field goal efficiency.
So in totality, the Celtics shooting in general was poor, it wasn’t only the three, but they still are resistant to shooting less than 40 threes.
On the other side of the ball, the Lakers were very effective shooting from below and beyond the arc. Shooting the three at 42.9 percent (15-for-35) and 47.2 percent from field goal (42-for-89). To be fair, they shot a lot of threes, in their own right, but they took six less and hit one more.
“They had a really good first half; they were really efficient, and we didn’t have our best game, to put it in simple words,” Kristaps Porzingis said about his team’s showing in Los Angeles.
The Lakers are having a decent season, 24-18 record, but, regardless, the Celtics are the better team. In the interest of fairness, it is worth noting that the Lakers matchup was the third game in four days and the second of a back-to-back — could play a role in the poor play. However, just a few days prior the Celtics were the team blowing out the Warriors, and on Thursday they let LeBron and the Lakers toy with them.
Another disconcerting development for the C’s from Thursday, is the lack of support from the bench, particular Payton Pritchard. He played 24 minutes on Thursday — five minutes more than Derrick White — and shot 2-for-12 (16.7 percent) with five attempted threes converting one. Quite the dud of a performance for the NBA Sixth Man of the Year candidate. For the Celtics’ sake they better hope it’s an off night, not a fall back to Earth for Pritchard.
Comparatively, LA’s bench was quite affective for the Lakers, combining for seven converted threes on 13 attempts. The Lakers got 46 combined points from their bench, with large contributions from Gabe Vincent (20 points) and Dalton Knecht (19 points).
So, now the Celtics’ record falls to 31-14. From Dec. 19’s loss to the Bulls, which has been established as the line of demarcation for the beginning of this poor stretch for the C’s, to now the Celtics are 9-9. And it seems there is no answer to help resolve this downturn for the C’s.
At the end of the day, losses in the middle of January in the NBA season is not the end of the world, but the longer this mediocrity continues, the more concerned fans should be at their team’s ability to make another championship run. Time for panic? No, but is it aggravating? Most definitely.
Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore at Northeastern University studying communications and media studies. Follow him on X @LukeGraham05.