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4 hours ago
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The Boston Celtics find themselves in a spot they certainly weren't expecting to be in two games into their Eastern Conference semifinals series against the New York Knicks. After winning all four of their regular season contests against the Knicks, the Celtics have thrown away a pair of 20-point leads in both Games 1 and 2 to quickly fall into an 0-2 deficit.
With the series heading back to New York now, the reigning champions are suddenly in trouble. It's been quite a change of pace, as they largely coasted through their past five playoff series, losing just four games during that stretch. In the blink of an eye, though, they have lost two straight on their home turf against the Knicks.
Boston has way too much talent to be ruled dead just yet, but there are some seriously concerning trends popping up right now. If you ask longtime Celtics fan Bill Simmons, he believes that there's an "arrogance" surrounding the team that is preventing them from making the adjustments they need to make in order to win games.
"I hate to use this word because in the wrong context it's a little insulting, but there's been an arrogance to this Celtics team that comes out at the worst possible times," Simmons said on "The Bill Simmons Podcast."
"It's like, 'This is who we are. We shoot threes, we don't need a timeout, we can just get Tatum going to the basket, we're just gonna play Horford because this is what we do down the stretch.'"
The C's certainly have the championship pedigree needed to crawl themselves out of the hole they dug themselves into against the Knicks, but it's not going to be easy, and they may need to make some changes if they want to get back in the win column.
Making matters even worse, though, is that the team will have to hit the road after dropping both of these contests at TD Garden. Game 3 is scheduled for Saturday, May 10 at 3:30 p.m. ET, and if the Celtics drop this game, their season is as good as over.
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