A Piece by Andrew P. (@celticreportNBA)
From the start of Sunday night’s Celtics-Blazers matchup, we knew we were in for a very entertaining game, especially on the offensive end. At the half, Boston and Portland were knotted at 71, with Tatum and Lillard dueling, with 24 and 16 respectively. McCollum had 18 for the Blazers, while Fournier and Pritchard had 10 each for Boston. For the Celtics, Aaron Nesmith had emerged as a helpful contributor, but that’s a topic for another, more positive day. After halftime though, things started to go downhill for the Celtics. Portland went on a run, and the Celtics responded with a run of their own, until this happened. Tatum drives the lane, misses, and Tristan Thompson goes for the put-back. Looks clean, right? WRONG! The referees call Thompson for an “offensive interference” call, and the ball goes the other way. Not only was this clearly the wrong call, but it absolutely destroyed the momentum that the Celtics had. But wait, there’s more!
Check out this clip here. Portland sets up their offense, with Nurkic as the ball handler at the top of the key. He hands the ball off to CJ McCollum, and instantly moves to set a screen on McCollum’s man, Marcus Smart. In doing so, he sets an illegal screen, which would normally turn the ball over to Boston. In the process of setting this illegal screen, he finds himself on the receiving end of a rather painful looking shot below the belt from Marcus Smart. This happens in the NBA frequently, there’s no avoiding it and usually no more than a common foul is given for it. You’d think this is where the play would end, and the Celtics get possession. But here’s the funny part. If you watch the clip back again, you can see both the illegal screen and the not-so-cheap shot from Smart clearly. The referees go to a booth review, and spend a good 5 minutes there, which for a review, is a very long time. NBC Sports Boston’s Mike Gorman had this to say about it: “They should put a time limit on reviews”, and I can’t help but agree.
Earlier in the game, Portland’s Norman Powell got away with a cheap shot on Marcus Smart, something that could easily have been called a flagrant, but was booked as only a common foul. This was one of the few calls that led many fans to question the calls that were being made. The call on this play is what put it over the top for many Celtics fans. Jusuf Nurkic was assessed an offensive foul; this was to be expected from his illegal screen. But get this: Marcus Smart is given a technical foul, and gets tossed from the game. This is something that I’ve never seen before, because that’s NOT HOW IT WORKS. Two techs and you’re out, that’s how it’s always been. This was Smart’s first technical, and he got ejected. I’m sure now you can understand why Celtics fans are mad.
Marcus Smart’s ejection really dampened the mood in TD Garden for the rest of the night; the Celtics couldn’t get anything going. On top of all this, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown both get injured on a play at the end of the game that, if you think about it, the Celtics would not have been in if it wasn’t for the obvious missed call against Thompson and the ejection against Smart. Yes, it’s a loose correlation, but it’s a correlation that I am going to make. Depending on the severity of the injuries to Brown and Tatum, the Celtics might be sunk. As it stands, the Celtics are now the 7th seed in the East, and probably won’t move up before the end of the regular season. We’ll be stuck in the play-in, and our playoff hopes rest on the injuries that our 2 young stars sustained. Thanks to incompetent refs, this season for the Boston Celtics is more than likely over.