Celtics-Hawks Adalah Kilas Balik Era 90-an… Sampai Tidak Lagi

I caught some of the Celtics-Hawks game the other night. You know, the one where Boston blew a thirty-point lead. Thirty points! Back in my day, a team with a thirty-point lead in the third quarter was already shaking hands. Larry Bird wouldn't have let that happen. Michael Jordan would've called timeout just to tell the other coach to pack it in.

Thing is, for a while there, it looked like a classic. Boston was moving the ball, getting open looks, playing some decent defense. Jayson Tatum dropped 37 points, and he was doing it with a real offensive rhythm, not just chucking up contested threes. Jrue Holiday was locking guys up, reminding me a little of Gary Payton on the perimeter. They built that lead to 30 with just over six minutes left in the third quarter after a Tatum layup made it 79-49.

The Collapse & The Complainers

Then the wheels just fell off. And I mean spectacularly. The Hawks, to their credit, didn’t quit. Dejounte Murray went absolutely off, finishing with 17 points in the fourth quarter alone and 30 for the game. He hit seven threes, including the dagger with 27 seconds left that put Atlanta up 120-118. That's a hell of a performance, but it shouldn't be enough to overcome a thirty-point deficit against a supposed title contender.

Look, I hear all the talk about pace-and-space and the three-point revolution. And yeah, the Hawks hitting 20 threes is part of how they got back in it. But a big part of it was Boston just getting soft. They turned the ball over 11 times in the second half. That's not a modern basketball problem; that's a fundamental basketball problem. You don't cough up the ball against the Bad Boy Pistons or the 90s Bulls and expect to win, let alone protect a massive lead.

Here's my hot take: this Celtics team is too comfortable. They're good enough to win a lot of games and often look dominant, but they lack that killer instinct. They got up big, thought the game was over, and just went through the motions. That's not how champions play. That's how you end up on the wrong side of history, blowing a 30-point lead and losing 123-122.

I predict Boston wins the East, but they won't win the Finals. Not with that kind of mental lapse. You can't flip a switch against the best teams in June if you can't hold a lead against the Hawks in March.