C's streak may go from bad to worse

[Reg]

08:08 AM ET 01.03 | With a fourth consecutive loss on Wednesday, Boston slipped three games below .500 for the first time in nearly a calendar year, though Paul Pierce remained optimistic. [Said Pierce:] "The good thing about it is we're staying positive about this stretch. It's a tough stretch for us obviously and we know we are going to get through it. We sit in here and we talk about being positive, don't get our heads down. We understand we feel you can always get the next one. It's just like any confident person, when things don't go your way you feel the next thing is going to go your way." ... With their next three games scheduled against playoff-caliber competition (Indiana, Atlanta, New York), including the latter two on the road, it could easily get worse.

Boston Herald

[SOS4Prez]

The Celtics aren't attacking the basket enough. The only guy that consistently is around the rim is Sullinger. KG's game isn't about the post, Pierce can only drive so often at his age and for some reason Rondo can't keep his foot on the accelerator. That leads to mid-to-long range jump shots, which they're struggling to hit right now. A miss leads to transition and they're transition D is just in shambles. Every single one of them looks like a chicken with it's head cut off. There's no communication, no one knows who to get or who needs help, which either results in an easy bucket or a wide open shots. It's simple: the Celtics are shooting low percentage shots and that makes them prone to facing a transitional offense, which is going to result in high percentage shots. They're offense isn't efficient enough (and doesn't care about offensive rebounds, so it's one-and-done with a miss) and they're non-half-court set defense is putrid.

Avery Bradley's return can only mean so much if he can never actually square up his guy. Hopefully the Celtics can begin to figure things out now that they've got their first and second team lineups set in stone.