BOSTON — Here was the perfect way to start the game for the Celtics: Paul Pierce under the basket for a layup. He missed. Kevin Garnett got the rebound. He missed. So Pierce rebounded and found Avery Bradley for a 3-point try.
You didn’t think he was going to make it, did you? It was the perfect symbolic start of another night of dreadful offense for the Celtics.
“We’re definitely frustrated,” said Pierce, who may be the most frustrated Celtic of all after a dismal 90-76 defeat to the Knicks last night that dropped them into an 0-3 ditch in the Eastern Conference first-round series.
The numbers show a guy just barely shooting 40 percent and averaging 5.3 turnovers after he went 6-of-15 and unloaded five more turnovers.
“Definitely a difficult situation,” Pierce understated. “I’m definitely surprised. I thought we were a team that matched up well with the Knicks.”
Hey, everyone once thought the world was flat — as flat as the Celtics’ offense that for a third straight horrific performance failed to crack 80 points.
“The Knicks are really doing a good job on defense trying to take us out of our offense,” Pierce said. “Our 3-point game hasn’t been there the whole series. We haven’t got to the line a ton. But we’ve got to figure it out. We’ve got to do a better job knocking down open shots, we’ve got to get to the free-throw line, got to move the ball, can’t turn it over. We allowed too many turnovers again.”
“We felt we got a lot of good looks tonight. They just didn’t fall.”
So, the Celtics don’t draw fouls, don’t make shots and can’t hang on to the ball. Aside from that, they’re solid offensively. Last night, it was pretty much awful from the start as the Celtics failed to feed off the emotion of a tribute to the heroes of the Boston Marathon tragedy.
“We wanted it so bad, we were so anxious just to feed off the energy of the crowd, it kind of a little bit got the best of us,” Pierce said.
Pierce struggled again hanging on to the ball and making shots. He started 1-of-6 in the first quarter — when he also had a pair of turnovers — and never really was a factor.
“I thought I had some pretty good looks. My 3-ball hasn’t really been there, but I thought I had some pretty good looks, looks that usually fall for me,” Pierce said. “I’ll continue to take advantage of that and hopefully I can knock some down [tomorrow] and open up the rest of my game.”
If not, he won’t have to worry about Monday.