The Celtics need to stop saving their best effort for the top teams

BOSTON -- It was a good but not great performance by the Boston Celtics, and the result was what you expect against Golden State - a 115-111 nail-biting loss. 

But as much as folks would love to marinate on how gutsy the Celtics played in taking the two-time defending champs down to the wire, the time to focus on the the loss has come and gone. 

The real challenge isn’t why they lost.

What are they going to do going forward? 

And that is where this team has been downright maddening this season for fans. 

When you look at the top teams in the NBA, the Celtics have shown time and time again they can at a minimum hold their own against them and in many instances, come away with a win. 

But it’s the not-so-stellar teams that seem to give them the most problems, teams like Brooklyn which the Celtics will see on Monday. 

It is inexplicable how the Celtics can have an entire quarter in which Steph Curry doesn’t get a single point, and yet Nets guard D’Angelo Russell can light them up for 18 points in one quarter. 

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Not treating every opponent with the same level of respect and focus has been the identity of this Celtics team, whether they want to admit it or not. 

Because as well as those teams might perform against Boston, the Celtics would still most likely win if they played with the kind of focus and attention to detail we saw on Saturday against the Warriors.

And it was OK earlier because the Celtics showed that they had the talent to compete at the highest level.

So what if they were inconsistent! There were lots of games still left to be played, right? 

Well, the calendar has flipped to 2019 and the Celtics have cleared about 60 percent of their regular season slate of games. 

The time for the Celtics to get right, is now. 

The challenge has been playing with the kind of fire, intensity and focus needed on a night-in, night-out basis. 

And that more than anything else, has kept the Celtics from reaching their full potential for any extended period of time and why they are just the fifth-best team record-wise in the East. 

The Celtics look very much like a team that’s still trying to figure out who they are and what they can do, consistently. 

You ask players individually and they’ll tell you that they need to be a hard-playing, defensive-minded group with the ability to score when opportunities are there for the taking.

It sounds good and makes a lot of sense. 

But that mindset has to come attached with a greater sense of urgency, the kind of urgency we saw in the closing moments of their loss to the Warriors which snapped their five-game winning streak and 10 straight at home. 

Because the closing seconds of their loss to Golden State had nothing to do with effort or intensity. 

WARRIORS 115, CELTICS 111

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Boston played with both at a high level. 

It came down to a great team in Golden State executing in the closing moments, and another team that didn’t. 

While still disappointed, no one - players, fans, coaches - comes away from a game like that feeling cheated or feeling as though all that players had to offer, wasn’t on the table. 

Gordon Hayward had a horrible night shooting the ball (he missed all five of his shots from the field), but his struggles had nothing to do with his effort which included him grabbing seven rebounds. 

It is that kind of effort the Celtics need to deliver more of going forward, the kind that rewards good-but-not-great performances with more than a few feel-good moments and optimism going forward but what matters most this time of year - wins. 

Said Kyrie Irving: “It’s a game where we take the lessons and move on.”

And in doing so, be more consistent in bringing a big-game mindset like the one they had for the Warriors, to every game.

Otherwise the lessons that Irving alluded to will be moot points that serve more as a reminder of their unproven potential, as opposed to proof-positive of the Celtics’ growth into being the squad they and so many believe will be the last team standing in the Eastern Conference at the end of the season.

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