I can think of several words to describe last nights woeful outing against the under-manned Celtics but I’ll settle on one: pathetic. Not worth the watching but I did anyway. Only thing to take away from this loss: we aren’t a contender.
1) Too much whining. Sure, the Celtics got away with 2 obvious goaltends and 2 obvious offensive fouls. Evidently that was enough to take the team and coaching staff out of the game. Luka is going to complain, LeBron has earned the right to complain. Marcus Smart flapping his yap for 3 minutes just to get a tech doesn’t need to stay in the game plan. Any player who just lays on the floor and whines should be benched next time…except our coach whines as much as the players do. Weak.
2) Speaking of Marcus Smart, fine time for a donut against the team that once called him
it’s heart and soul right before shipping him out and winning a title. So much for getting revenge or playing for pride… At this point I hope he opts out, the negatives aren’t outweighed by the positives, IMO. He’s clearly a step slow on D, takes it out on the officials, and shoots far too often based on his ability to actually make shots. Play Kennard more if you need buckets or Vando if you need stops. Have him slide into a mentor role or whatever.
3) Same goes for Ayton. Please, please opt out. We don’t need your skillset on this team and we need someone whose head is in the game for more than 7 minutes. It’s a 48 minute game, dude, show up for more of them or just go away.
4) Reddick got vastly out-coached. The Celtics pressured us full court all game long and we let them, they outhustled us and we stuck with our slowest, most myopic players in the 2nd half. Pat Riley could have done a better job coaching these guys, not 80’s Pat Riley, the near fossilized one that showed more pep than our entire team last night during his speech.
5) Reaves checked out early. Evidently he just can’t keep up with Payton Pritchard. Dude got outplayed by Payton for the full 48 and whined a lot while it happened. Reaves might get paid a lot of money this coming summer but games like this make me wonder if it should be us…
Games like this make me wish our record reflected the effort this team puts forth. Honestly, this is a playin team riding on the coattails of early season success and injuries to key players on other teams. It’s sad that this is how LeBron will go out as a Laker because I’m not seeing a lot of reasons for him to put himself through this ever again. I fucking hate losing to the Celtics but I really hate the way we no-showed a big game last night. Just proves what a lot of us have seen in this team since last summer. Which is to say not much. I suppose there’s time to turn it around but this feels like what the team it is now. Weak, slow, and no heart.
Jamie, you nailed the core of it, and honestly the most frustrating part is how predictable this kind of performance has become. On a night that should’ve been dripping with pride and edge—Riley’s statue going up, the building buzzing, the Celtics in the house—we somehow managed to look like the team least interested in being there. That’s the part that stings.
What bothered me most wasn’t even the missed calls or the bad shooting stretches. It was the complete absence of urgency. Boston came in undermanned and still played like a group that understood the moment. We played like a group that assumed the moment would just hand itself to us. That’s not a contender’s mentality; that’s a team hoping talent alone will bail them out.
And you’re right about the whining. It’s one thing to be frustrated, but when the complaining becomes the identity of the team, it’s a problem. The Celtics were bumping, pressing, scrapping, and we responded by looking at the refs for sympathy. That’s not the DNA of a team that wants to make noise in May.
Smart and Ayton… man. I wanted both of those guys to be tone‑setters, but right now they’re setting the wrong tone. Smart’s supposed to be the emotional thermostat, but lately he’s either ice‑cold or boiling over. And Ayton—how do you have that size, that skill, and still disappear for entire quarters? It’s maddening.
Reddick getting out-coached was another tough look. Boston dictated the pace, dictated the matchups, dictated the physicality. We just absorbed it. Riley’s statue is outside now, but the spirit of Riley-ball was nowhere near the floor.
And Reaves… I love the guy, but if Payton Pritchard is outworking you on both ends for 48 minutes, that’s a wake-up call. Not a “shrug it off” night. A wake-up call.
The saddest part is your last point: LeBron. He deserved a team that rises to big moments, not one that shrinks from them. Nights like this make it feel like we’re wasting whatever is left of his greatness.
There’s still time to turn it around, sure—but at some point the “time” argument becomes a crutch. This team has to decide who it wants to be. Because right now? It’s exactly what you said: slow, soft, and heartless. And that’s not a reflection of talent—it’s a reflection of mindset.
If last night didn’t embarrass them into some self-reflection, I don’t know what will.
Spot. Fucking. On. I don’t know if we have the moxie to get past this “meh” attitude but hearing the players blaming early season injuries like LeBron and Luka and Austin did after the game didn’t inspire confidence. We’ll see, I will say, to strike a note of hope, that this is a season of growth for guys like Jake, Jaxson and Vando. They’re all under young and fall into the Luka timeline, should they stay on the team. If we don’t make noise in the playoffs it likely won’t be on those guys as they tend to get the short end of the rotation. If they can grow a little, Reaves maintains or improves and is healthier, then I kinda can see a blueprint for a team that needs some bench scoring and a defensive wing to start. So much of what ails isn’t “this players skill set doesn’t fit” it’s “the whole team phoned it in for a week or so”. IMO Reddick has 2 months to show he’s Mark’s kind of coach. Same could go for Rob based on this summer. Won’t surprise me if both are gone before the calendar changes to 2027. Of the 2 I actually place way more blame on Rob who is doing an awful job of supporting g his 112th hand picked after a thorough and exhaustive search, coach. Clearly Reddick has embraced ‘switch everything’ as a his go-to defensive identity. Rob hasn’t been able to bring in many players that support that choice. Neither has shown much ability to adapt, which is a failure in snd of itself.
We’re simply not a very good basketball team. We’re not a few minor adjustments away from becoming a contender. And it gets exposed just about every time we run up against a true contender.