Everything you need to know about the Celtics’ loss to the Pacers, with BSJ insight and analysis.<\/p>\n
The Celtics’ defense held the Pacers in check early, going into the second up five. The Pacers were nearly perfect from 3 in the second, but Anfernee Simons had 12 to help Boston keep a three-point lead. The Celtics imploded early in the third, but recovered to head into the fourth down two. It grew to eight, but the Celtics were able to tie the game in the final minute, but Pascal Siakam made his last shot for Boston while White missed his.<\/p>\n
– Another clutch loss:\u00a0They’re now 8-12 in clutch games. We can put an asterisk next to this one if we want because there was no Jaylen Brown, but this game was very winnable. The Celtics had plenty of looks that should have fallen, but didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Tough shooting:\u00a0The Celtics won most of the margins that normally lead to wins. They took and made more shots overall, they took and made more free throws, they had more second chance points, and more points off turnovers. But they shot 9-35 from 3 while Indiana was 16-37. That’s too much of a difference to make up without dominating the other margins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– \u201cIllegal Screen\u201d: Joe Mazzulla\u2019s postgame press conference was about 40 seconds long, and it consisted of him saying the words \u201cillegal screen\u201d six different times. He was complaining about Siakam setting a screen on Derrick White on the final possession that ultimately resulted in Siakam\u2019s game-winning shot. We\u2019ll take a look later on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Celtics went scoreless from the 1:29 mark of the 2nd quarter, when they led 56-51, to the 7:32 mark of the third, when they made it 61-58 Pacers. The Indiana lead got up to 13, 73-60, before Boston made a run. And though they tied it late, they never retook the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Payton Pritchard:\u00a0It wasn\u2019t the 30 I thought he might have, but it was a decent 23-point, eight-assist, four-rebound performance. He was basically the reason why the Celtics recovered from their third-quarter malaise to give themselves a chance. He also had two steals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Neemias Queta: He was huge in the fourth when things were getting dicey again for Boston. He ha 15 points, eight rebounds, two assists, two steals, and a block. One of those steals was what finally helped break the third-quarter drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Luka Garza:\u00a0He continues to do what he does. He had a nice impact in the second quarter. He finished with six points and six rebounds but also a team-high +10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know about the Celtics’ loss to the Pacers, with BSJ insight and analysis. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,75,46,113,126,3866,6,114,66376,66682],"class_list":{"0":"post-533349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-celtics","11":"tag-indiana","12":"tag-indiana-pacers","13":"tag-indianapacers","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-pacers","16":"tag-top-celtics","17":"tag-top-story-2"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115886362706749109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}