Down 2-0, the Celtics head to New York with more questions than answers

While in the middle of a slump in December and January, in which the Boston Celtics lost nearly as many games as they won, they urged patience. 

This was just the doldrums of a long season. The hangover of a championship. A blip. 

“I believe we’ll peak at the right moment,” Kristaps Porziņģis said Jan. 23 before the Celtics closed their season by winning 19 of their final 22 games, reassuring their doubters that they know how to turn it on when it counts. 

But after the Celtics blew their second straight 20-point lead to the New York Knicks to lose Game 2 of their second-round playoff series on Wednesday, 91-90, it’s time to wonder if the Celtics’ issues were more pronounced than they presumed. 

The Celtics’ collapse in Game 2 was not just deja vu of Game 1, when they blew a 20-point lead to fall to the Knicks in overtime, 108-105; it was symbolic of a bigger problem. 

The Celtics are squandering big advantages and collapsing in crunch-time situations, an issue that would be understandable for a young team – not a pair of superstars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who have played together for eight years, making the playoffs in each of those seasons, and winning the championship last year. 

Really, this was repeated mental lapses, a major problem for a team that knows the margin for error in the postseason is incredibly slim. Last postseason, they never trailed a series and never lost more than one game en route to a 16-3 breezy title-winning run.

So, why does this keep happening?

“I’m not sure,” said Brown, who had 20 points, six rebounds and six turnovers. “We’ve gotten to great starts. We guarded, we played physical, with energy today. To start the fourth quarter, I thought we got like four or five great looks that didn’t go in, so maybe that affected us. But what’s done is done. Now we’ve got an opportunity to see what we’re made of.”

The issue for the Celtics in this series has been the fourth quarter. In Games 1 and 2, they shot a combined 9-for-45 (20 percent) from the field and 4-for-24 (16.7) from beyond the arc in the final 12 minutes.

On Wednesday, Brown went scoreless in the fourth quarter, while Tatum was 1-for-5 from the field. 

Meanwhile, the Knicks saw that the Celtics hit a wall and they capitalized on it. Mikal Bridges scored all 14 of his points in the final quarter. He also made the game-sealing steal against Tatum in the final seconds with the Knicks up, 91-90, preventing the Celtics from firing a potentially game-winning shot. 

Jalen Brunson, who won the Clutch Player of the Year award, showed why he was deserving of that honor, scoring all six of the Knicks’ points in the final 2 minutes. 

Now, the Knicks are two wins away from their first conference finals appearance since 2000. 

And the reigning champions are on the ropes, staring down an 0-2 hole with Games 3 and 4 in New York.

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.

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