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The modern NBA is about as conducive to comebacks as any sport has ever been. The prevalence of 3-point shooting means that scoring a large number of points fast, or missing a slew of difficult shots across several quarters, means that there are relatively few truly secure leads in basketball. However, the 30-point comeback had yet to be overcome this season.
With 4:23 remaining in the second quarter of Monday’s game between the Boston Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks, Al Horford drilled a 3-pointer, extending his team’s lead to 30 points. That effectively ended the game, right? Okay, you read the headline. Clearly, it wasn’t.
Atlanta went on an 18-6 run from the time Horford hit that 3-pointer to the end of the first half. It continued to chip away at the lead, winning the third quarter 34-22. Finally, with 9:58 remaining in the fourth quarter, Wes Matthews hit a 3-pointer to give the Hawks the lead back at 97–96.
The two teams fought back and forth for the rest of the fourth quarter, but DeJounte Murray reclaimed the lead with one minute remaining, and De’Andre Hunter sealed the deal with a 3-pointer that gave Atlanta a four-point lead with 10 seconds left. After the game, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla sought to focus on the positives.
“It’s a good lesson,” Mazzula explained. “When you let a team stay around, they made those margin plays—points off turnovers, 3-pointers, offensive rebounds. Credit to them for fighting back.”
It’s a lesson that the Celtics appear to learn repeatedly. After all, less than three weeks ago, on March 5, Boston surrendered a 22-point lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a humiliating nationally broadcast loss. Boston has only lost 15 games this season, but they have squandered double-digit leads in more than half of them (eight). Last season, the Celtics blew a 28-point lead at home and lost to the Brooklyn Nets.
Historically, surpassing that embarrassment appeared nearly unthinkable. Before Monday, only nine NBA teams had ever blown a 30-point lead in league history. The Celtics have just made it an even ten. Fortunately, it was not the largest blown lead in league history. That dubious title goes to the 1996-97 Denver Nuggets, who let the Utah Jazz reverse a 36-point deficit into a four-point win.
Most teams, including the best, lose a few significant leads each year. That’s simply a byproduct of the league’s current shot profile and 82-game schedule. Boston loses so rarely that every single setback will be exaggerated. Every other team in the league has at least six more losses than the Celtics. To some extent, this emphasizes their few flaws. The fact that they were missing Jrue Holiday and Derrick White versus Atlanta should have provided some respite. The Celtics were not at full strength.
However, the Celtics have established a worrying habit of falling asleep behind the wheel. You can get away with that during regular-season March games. They still own a 10.5-game advantage over the Eastern Conference’s top seed. This was not a game they had to win. However, inconsistency can mean the difference between survival and elimination in the postseason. Even if the Celtics don’t lose frequently, the fact that so many of their losses appear to be in the same pattern is concerning.