The Boston Celtics have dropped below .500 once again.
After a furious close to the first half of the season that saw them win four straight to finish two games above .500 before the break, the team has gone 1-4 coming out of the break to drop them to 20-21. That includes Friday night's loss to the Kings.
The Celtics are now faced with yet another reckoning ahead of their busiest week of the year, featuring five games in seven days and the long-awaited March 25 deadline. Can this team live up to their ceiling? Can they play well in clutch situations?
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Highlights: C's outscored by 10 in fourth, drop third straight
These are the questions that the team will answer in the coming days. And if they don't, this long and bumpy season will range on for the C's.
Here are three takeaways from the Celtics' latest loss.
1. The Celtics are bad in the fourth quarter and clutch situations.
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At this point, there's no blaming this on a small sample size. Or on the team not being at full strength. This team simply isn't good in late-game clutch situations.
In 28 "clutch games" this year -- contest where teams are separated by five or fewer points with under five minutes left in the game -- the Celtics have an 11-17 record. That .393 winning percentage in clutch situations ranks them 23rd out of 30 NBA teams.
And what is the root cause of that? The Celtics' awful fourth quarter performances.
This year, the C's rank dead-last in the league in fourth quarter margin, and that will only get worse after they were outscored 25-15 by Sacramento in the fourth on Friday.
As much as Boston has been undone by slow starts this year, they have also lost many games because they can't pull things out in the clutch. The Celtics are going to have to fix this if they want to avoid continuing their slide down the Eastern Conference standings.
2. Marcus Smart hasn't been the defensive savior some hoped he'd be.
The Celtics certainly missed Smart during his 18 game absence that spanned Feb. 2 to March 11 as he dealt with a calf injury. However, Smart's return hasn't exactly fixed the defense as some had hoped.
In fact, the C's defense has continued to be a major problem for the team.
Since Smart's return, the Celtics are actually allowing more points per game than they were in the 18 games without him.
Of course, that's not to say that Smart is the problem here. He's still a great defender. But the point is that the Celtics haven't been better with him on the floor, and that points to some serious problems with their stop unit in general. Chief among them, all five guys on defense can't seem to play collectively at any given time.
The Celtics have been particularly bad on the perimeter lately and at one point, they allowed teams to make 18+ 3-point shots in three consecutive games. Those struggles are part of the reason that they have allowed an extra 1.4 points per game even with Smart's return.
The C's only allowed 12 against the Kings, but they still let Sacramento shoot 40 percent from beyond the arc. They'll have to defend with some more intensity beyond the arc (and in general) if they want their defensive numbers, and chances of winning, to improve.
3. Harrison Barnes made a good case to be a top Celtics trade target
Barnes didn't have a great game against the Celtics. He wasn't super flashy. However, he played a well-rounded game and showed off what's so appealing about his skill set.
Barnes doesn't need a lot of shots to make an impact. He fired off just 10 against the Celtics and made five of them. He made two-of-four attempts from beyond the arc and showed off his smooth shooting stroke to finish with a respectable 15 points.
Where Barnes really made an impact against the C's was hustling for boards. He had a game-high 13 rebounds and dished out three assists while deferring toward De'Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, and even Richaun Holmes in a game where all three shot well.
Barnes has size (6-foot-8) and he can do a little bit of everything. He would allow the C's to play better small-ball lineups, as the Kings did with Holmes at the center spot.
Boston should be interested in Barnes. It's unclear if Sacramento is willing to offload him, as they seem to think they have a chance to make the playoffs even in the crowded Western Conference, but they should still check in. And Barnes could be a name to watch in the offseason if the C's don't use their traded player exception by Thursday's trade deadline.
Also, both Hield and Holmes could be worth considering for the C's. We'll see what the team does, but the Kings have a lot of good pieces that the team could use to upgrade their depth.