20/20 vision not great for ‘careless’ Celtics in loss to Hawks

20 turnovers, 20 offensive rebounds allowed to Atlanta.

Sometimes you’re going to lose games, even when you’re the Boston Celtics. There are going to be nights where there’s absolutely nothing that you can do to stop a hot shooter or a team that just has it going.

Tuesday…well, Tuesday was not one of those nights.

Boston’s NBA Cup loss to the Atlanta Hawks was flat-out gross — disgusting even. Over the course of 48 minutes, the Celtics shot themselves in the foot (feet?) over and over again. They handed the Hawks all of the extra chances possible by turning the ball over and allowing a plethora of offensive rebounds.

“They played harder, and they played more physical than we did,” said head coach Joe Mazzulla, after his team’s 117-116 defeat to the Trae Young-less Hawks. “They got 20 offensive rebounds, and forced us into 20 turnovers. You let a team outshoot you by a shot margin like that — you’re not gonna win.”

I mean, just take a look at the final bucket for the Hawks. Boston actually got the miss that they were looking for, they just couldn’t secure the board to close out the possession.

The entire night was riddled with plays like this. Seconds before the above, Atlanta found a lifeline due to the Cs’ lack of urgency on the glass. Boston had three players right under the basket after Jalen Johnson came up short on a floater, yet the ball found none of them. Instead, it found Johnson who then dished to Larry Nance Jr. for a wide-open triple.

Here’s a look:

When you pair this with the inability to throw an entry pass, as Mazzulla said, “you’re not going to win.” Especially when that sloppiness results in you taking just ³⁄₄ of the shots that the opposing team did.

That’s right.

Atlanta took 100 shots to Boston’s 75.

According to Jaylen Brown, that differential stemmed from carelessness.

“We expected to win, (we were) too careless,” he said. “And it showed. I think that the number one category where it showed was on our turnovers. It’s uncharacteristic of us to have 20 turnovers, under any circumstance. I just think that was a display that, you know, we weren’t in sync like we normally would be.”

Brown also took accountability for those turnovers, saying that it’s on him, as well as Jayson Tatum to take care of the ball. He pointed out that the two combined for 11 of Boston’s 20 turnovers.

While the Cs were careless, the Hawks still clearly wanted to win this game.

“They were just more aggressive,” pointed out Derrick White. “They found a way to every 50/50 ball and seemed like they wanted it a little more.”

According to White, some of that aggression comes from the added opportunity that guys like Dyson Daniels and Jalen Johnson see while their star, Young, is out. Daniels posted a team-high 28 points and six steals, while Johnson logged a triple-double.

“I think when guys are out, other people are just looking forward to that opportunity and just playing wild and free and shooting confidently. We just have to up our intensity level at the beginning of games and just understand that’s why teams are trying to do.”

As bewildering as that may be to fans, it logically makes a ton of sense. Of course, these guys are going to be chomping at the bit. The problem lies with the Celtics feeling like they’ll be just fine regardless of that.

Sure, White and Brown were both accountable at the podium and absolutely deserve a mulligan, especially considering the consistency they’ve shown over the past season and beyond. But their play should reflect that accountability.

We can’t pretend that the Cs haven’t looked a little lackluster for the past week or so. They had fallen behind early in their previous two games, then started slow again on Tuesday. It’s certainly not time for the panic button, but it may be time to showcase the same aggression and physicality that helped them storm back against the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday. It’s in there, we’ve all seen it, and that makes the NBA Cup loss that much more disappointing.