You want to know why the Celtics lost this game?
Lucky shots? Those certainly helped, but that was only two plays.
Bad refs? I agree that the refs were bad, but the only time I feel comfortable pinning a loss on bad officiating is when the team plays well virtually the whole game and then gets shafted at the very end. That's not what happened tonight.
Tonight, the Celtics shot themselves in the foot, and it started in the first quarter.
Chicago had 8 turnovers in the first quarter—EIGHT—but the Celtics got only a measly 4 points off those turnovers:
Barbosa gets a steal, and Pierce misses a jumper
Pierce gets a steal, Rondo misses a jumper
Bass gets a steal, then commits a traveling violation
Sully gets a steal, Rondo gets a dunk
Lee gets a steal, Pierce misses a layup
Deng throws the ball away, then Rondo throws it right back
Boozer travels, then Rondo misses a jump shot
Lee gets a steal, Rondo hits a jumper
There was also a Barbosa missed layup, and missed open jumpers by Bass (twice) and Lee (thrice).
Second quarter featured three more Chicago turnovers, but the Cs got only 2 points out of them:
Noah throws it away, Garnett commits offensive foul
Deng throws it away, Garnett missed jumper
Bass gets the steal, Rondo makes the layup
Also, Pierce misses wide-open three pointers on consecutive possessions.
That's 11 first-half turnovers for Chicago resulting in only 6 Boston points, and a host of missed open looks, which, if close to half are made, would've given Boston another 8-10 points.
Also: Pierce shot 5 for 17, KG 5 for 16 overall (6 of 10 FTs). KG doesn't take 16 shots when he's on, so I don't know why he shot so many times tonight when he was clearly off. Pierce has been in a funk for several games now, and some of his shots were quite flat.
Also would've been nice if Green had attempted more than 4 shots.
Some people like to say that games are won or lost in crunch time. I say that wins and losses can be traced back to what happened throughout the course of a game. Missed opportunities.
P.S.: Loved how Rondo kept taking it to the hoop in the first half, and congratulations to Sully for another awesome effort on the boards (15, 5 offensive).