Blakely: Celtics can't do anything right

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PHILADELPHIAOn most nights, it's pretty easy to figure out what goes wrong in a loss.

Rebounding is a good place to start. Defensive breakdowns is a go-to explanation. The schedule, fatigue, playing a desperate team on the road . . . there's a ton of 'em.

How about all the above?

That's pretty much what the Boston Celtics were a victim of on Wednesday, as everything that seemingly could go wrong for the C's, did.

And that led to a lopsided 103-71 loss to Philadelphia.

"We missed a ton of open shots," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "Brandon Bass, Kevin Garnett, all of them, we just missed shot after shot. Everything was front-rim. We tried to go zone. We tried to press. We tried to go small. Nothing was working."

Not only were the C's crushed, but in the process, so went their shot at over-taking the Sixers (23-17) for the best record in the Atlantic Division.

After most games, there's usually something of value that the Celtics can take away from the performance.

Wednesday's loss?

Not so much.

"It was one of them you just throw away," said Paul Pierce. "You don't even go back to it, reference it, nothing. Just throw this one away."

Although the Celtics try their best to stay clear of making excuses following losses, there's no way to ignore the impact of the C's having played back-to-back overtime games had on Wednesday's outcome.

Rivers wouldn't say for sure that his team was fatigued, but "it came down to a lot of things, and that was one of them."

Rajon Rondo, who had five points and eight assists, was already working on putting Wednesday's beatdown out of his head, and instead look forward to Friday's opponent, Portland.

As badly as the Celtics played, there's nothing they can do about it now but try to move on and not have any more games like that this season.

"The season is the way it is," Rondo said. "We get one day off. We got a fourth game coming up Friday, so just try to get over the hump and get a win before we go out to the West coast."

After Friday's home game against Portland, Boston will head out West for five straight road games (at Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Golden State, Sacramento and Denver) and continue their road trek with road games at Atlanta, Milwaukee and back in Philadelphia on March 23.

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