Forsberg: It’s OK to criticize the Celtics for choking in clutch time
On Monday’s Toucher & Hardy program, Chris Forsberg joined the show to discuss the Boston Celtics’ failure to close out games successfully.
Mar 7, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) during the fourth quarter against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Celtics Not Clutch?
Parts of conversation abbreviated for clarity.
Hardy: Just real quick. The back-to-back losses to Atlanta. Does anything concern you about those games? Easy to write off. They don’t have a lot to play for but a 30-point lead and one, and I think one that they wanted to have after having a few days off, and Atlanta was coming back from being on the road.
Chris Forsberg: I’m not losing sleep over it. But I do think, you know, there’s this notion I sometimes hate it when, like, Celtics fans will tell you like, “Oh, they’ve won 57 games and are so good. We don’t have to worry. They’re experimenting. They’re doing this. They’re doing that.”
Yes, still try to win the game. Like, be better late in. The one thing that does worry me is an execution, and it wasn’t the beacon of a pristine end-of-game playing. And that in that Atlanta series, I don’t care what the obstacles are, whether you know you’re missing your back in the first game, but you were full health on that second one, and you should have been motivated.
And even if you are practicing one-five switching like, let’s figure it out, figured out how to win the game and get to the finish line of that.
I do despise that there’s this notion that we can’t nitpick the team because of the success they’ve had. Yeah, it’s great. I still think they’re there should be in the NBA finals, but I can also sit there and say like, why are there repeated missteps at the finish line of these games, and why can’t they get a little bit more creative in these instances and yearn for them to show a little bit of that progress?
So, for me, it’s like, I’d rather talk about the stuff that they haven’t done well than obsess about why their record is as good as it is. Yeah.
Hardy: The notion that there’s somehow saving the trick play like an NFL team like the Patriots wouldn’t show the cool pass play with Amendola or Edelman before the postseason. No.
It would be just fine for Tatum to dish it out to another shooter, as opposed to just backing himself down into a position where he’s going to get the ball stolen, blocked, or he’s going to put up some kind of a desperation shot with the other four guys standing around and watching it be okay.
Chris Forsberg: There are no secrets in the NBA, right? When you get to the playoffs, everyone watches every minute of the game film and knows every play you’ll run.
If you think like the Atlanta Hawks, if you catch them in the plan, are going to be hip to a play because you didn’t run it in March or April, I think you’re just you’re kind of overthinking it.
And, I hope that when we do get there, there’s a little bit more creativity that they learn from these situations because they do not seem to have learned from Cleveland to Atlanta. And, you know, you can’t count on just absolutely dominating all these games.
I do think there will be, you know, some nights where you breathe, and you don’t have to worry about it. They have to be a little bit better in those situations. And maybe it would make me feel a little bit better if they did it a couple of times before the real games start.
Segment Audio
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