Perspective

Tuesday's loss hurt, but it wasn't a hammer blow

Trying something different today…

Yesterday, I read Jonathan Macri’s piece titled “Anatomy of a Collapse.” It was his final look at the New York Knicks’ game two loss at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks on Monday, April 20.

The opening paragraph struck me. Allow me to share it with you.

“Good morning. I hope everyone got over that game by now. I didn’t. As of 8:30 last night, when I put the finishing touches on the newsletter you’re about to read, I was still pissed off. Maybe more pissed than I was after the game. I get that we’re supposed to be thankful the team is good, and I am, because playoff basketball - even with heartbreaking losses - is better than counting days until the lottery. But there’s something about giving away a game in the way they gave this one away that incites a very particular set of negative emotions.”

This led me to question my own reaction to Boston’s loss just a few hours prior to my opening Macri’s musing.

See, I wasn’t pissed off. Not even a little bit.

Should I have been?

Does that mean I don’t care as much as I should?

Am I working too hard to dissociate with each individual result in the hope of being ‘more professional’?

Yeah… probably a little.

Not because I don’t care.

Not because I’m not invested in a team I proclaim to love.

And not because I’m trying to ‘play the part’ of a professional (although, allowing myself to be more “me” in my writing is my next personal development goal for this newsletter).

I wasn’t pissed because we’ve been here before. Quite a lot, actually.

It’s been over a decade since the Boston Celtics last missed the playoffs — back when Brad Stevens had just arrived, and the franchise was adjusting to life after Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

Since then, we’ve cheered this team on six runs to the Eastern Conference Finals and two trips to the NBA Finals. We’ve been rewarded with a championship along the way, too.

None of those postseason adventures went undefeated. Interestingly, of the last 12 trips to the playoffs, the Celtics have only swept their opening round opponent three times (Indiana in 2019, Philly in 2020, and Brooklyn in 2022).

In the seasons since Boston swept the Brooklyn Nets, the Celtics have lost at least once in the first round.

22-23: Lost twice to the Atlanta Hawks, winning the series 4-3

23-24: Lost once to the Miami Heat, winning the series 4-1

24-25: Lost once to the Orlando Magic, winning the series 4-1

25-26: Lost once (so far) to the Philadelphia 76ers, we will see how things go.

Losses rarely grind my gears. Perhaps it’s my willingness to fail in my own life. You can never learn and build something successful if you shy away due to the fear of failure. I tend to view sports the same way.

However, there are exceptions to the rule.

Remember the 2021-22 season, where for a stretch of the regular season, the Celtics continually collapsed late in games?

Yeah, those left me pissed.

I remember being absolutely furious when the Celtics entered the fourth quarter of their Nov. 1, 2021, game against the Chicago Bulls with a 103 - 89 lead over the Chicago Bulls, only to fall asleep at the wheel and lose 128-114.

I mean, 39 fourth-quarter points is enough to leave anyone bubbling with rage…right?

The Christmas Day loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in that same season was even worse.

Those are the types of losses where you’ll see me share in your disappointment, anger or frustration.

But a loss against a team that came out playing markedly better than game one, where their coach won the first battle on the chessboard?

Sure, it stings.

It doesn’t leave me annoyed, though.

Ok, if it were a game five, or even a game six, I’d be singing a different tune.

Context matters.

And that brings me back to Macri’s opening.

The Knicks did fall apart down the stretch, blowing a game, and unlike the Celtics, the fanbase hasn’t enjoyed much postseason basketball in recent years.

I mean, in the last 12 years, New York has appeared in five postseasons (including this one). Before this season, they’ve gotten out of the first round three times, only making it to a conference finals once.

In the seven years prior to their first-round loss against Atlanta in 2021, New York fans had been counting down to the draft lottery for seven straight years.

Each loss is going to sting a little more because the work it took to get the team to where it is now was grueling.

Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand when I venture onto Twitter, Instagram, Reddit or YouTube and see Celtics fans venting their frustration at their favorite team dropping yet another first-round game.

I get it. I do.

Sometimes, though, it can go a little too far.

I’ve already seen people anointing Derrick White as an offseason trade candidate because his season has been below the level we’d expect. Yet, the context of his role this year is being overlooked.

I am, however, beginning to warm to the idea that Hauser may be better served coming off the bench for the rest of this series — but that’s an argument for another day.

As I sat there, reading through Macri’s piece, while looking at it through a Celtics lens as the Celticsverse burned on social media around me, I did wonder whether the same abundance of success that has me taking a more measured approach is also what leads to the live-by-the-game, die-by-the-game mentality we see from other segments of the fanbase.

Are the Celtics a victim of their own success?

Probably. We’ve all become so used to seeing them win and do so at a high level that the off-nights hit harder. They’re a Mike Tyson punch out of the blue.

When you get hit, you get angry or you disassociate. Fight or flight.

Everybody is different.

The same can be said of how we follow our favorite sports teams. Just like we all deal with success and failure in our own lives in unique and sometimes peculiar ways.

Take me, for instance. I’ve written before about how, in recent years, I gained a ton of weight, and am working it all back off. Well, this morning, I weighed myself (as I do every day to track average loss over time) and had reached my latest milestone.

Allow me a Britishism here, I was chuffed.

Yet, to celebrate, I sat down, got a pen and paper, and wrote out my next milestone along with the timeframe I hope to reach it in.

That was it.

That was my celebration.

What I’m getting at is it’s ok to be annoyed by Boston’s loss on Tuesday. It’s ok to be pissed that they stuck with a defensive system and offensive approach that clearly wasn’t working.

However, from where I’m sitting, losing that way — while far from ideal — is nowhere near as bad as mentally checking out. That’s when I start to worry.

Those signs aren’t there.

As Celtics fans, we’ve been here enough times to have confidence that Mazzulla and his staff will figure this out. And we’ve seen enough first-round losses to know that one game isn’t going to swing the pendulum — not with this team — not with this head coach.

However, if they lose game three, we might need a different conversation.