The Boston Celtics are still trying to find their way. At times they look like a great team, capable of beating even their most elite competition. Other times, they look to be a step below the “contenders” in the Eastern Conference.
Part of the Celtics’ issues, at least in recent days, has been a penchant for blowing leads against their competition. The C’s lost a gut-wrenching contest against the Phoenix Suns on an improbable shot at the buzzer from Tyler Ulis. They followed that up by blowing a huge lead against the LA Clippers.
After the second straight loss, point guard Isaiah Thomas publicly displayed his frustration over the state of the team. One part of his post-game scrum was particularly interesting, via Chris Forsberg of ESPN:
“Everything,” he said. “We should have won this game. We should have won [Sunday] night [in Phoenix]. We can’t be experimenting in Game 63.”
Added Thomas: “It’s just the way we lost tonight was unacceptable. We lost the game in the last 15 minutes of the game. We played a really good game up until the last 15 minutes. And that’s the players’ fault, the coaches’ fault, that’s everybody in this locker room’s fault. We could have done a lot better.”
It seems as though Thomas is criticizing head coach Brad Stevens for his lineups or play calls, calling it “experimenting.” The Celtics are caught in a no-win situation; while Stevens should try to experiment now to find optimal solutions for the playoffs, Boston is also in a race to get the highest seed possible in the East.
There’s probably no feuding going on here. Thomas has been quick to praise Stevens and recently admitted that other all-stars were impressed by the head coach of the East team at All-Star Weekend.
But it is worth noting that frustrations are settling in for the current second-best team in the Eastern Conference. Whether that’s from believing they had a shot at getting the top seed, believing they needed it, or concerns that the Wizards or Raptors could catch up to them is a viable question.
The only certainty is that Isaiah Thomas wants to see some changes.
