The Boston Celtics fell victim to a shocking 20-point comeback in their Game 1 matchup against the New York Knicks. While there are some very real reasons on the court for how the Celtics fell apart in the game, Celtics reporters Chris Forsberg and Abby Chin had some bizarre reasons for why the tide in the game quickly turned.
After the game, Forsberg and Chin hosted the “Postgame Pod” on the NBC Sports Boston YouTube channel, offering their reaction to the loss. And Forsberg, in particular, came prepared with a list of things that went wrong for the Celtics.
“What’s up, everybody?” said Forsberg. “Low energy podcast coming from the TD Garden after the Celtics fell to the New York Knicks 108-105 in overtime. Abby, I have a list of 12 or 13 things that went wrong in this game. As the kids do on Instagram, blindly rank these 12 things.”
At first, Forsberg named a very real factor that affected the Celtics’ performance, an unforeseen illness that limited Kristaps Porzingis to playing 13 minutes. But then, Forsberg blamed an unenthusiastic Celtics home crowd for the team cracking down the stretch.
“Kritaps Porzingis’ illness that you may have caused,” said Forsberg to Chin, joking that she interviewed him before the game. “Did you do your 1-on-1 with him before the game? And he was fine at that point? This is a playoff game against a team he has a little bit of motivation to go against. I’m slightly more concerned than you. If only because, we thought we were coming out of the woods. He had navigated this illness. He was actually very good the last time they played the New York Knicks, 34 points, I believe it was down there at MSG. And much like this crowd in general, it just didn’t have the same zest to start the game.”
Chin concurred with Forsberg’s assessment about the crowd, claiming that the lack of enthusiasm among the Celtics faithful may have been due to the 7:00 start time and the “dreary” weather outside.
“I agree,” added Chin. “I think it was the 7 o’clock start. 7 o’clock on a Monday. Dreary day outside, there were plenty of open seats when the anthem was sung. So I’m gonna blame it on that.”
As an East Coast team, the Celtics played most of their regular-season games with start times around 7 o’clock. So it’s incredibly laughable to suggest that this was a legitimate factor.
And if the crowd at TD Garden was a problem, it sure didn’t seem like it early on, as the Celtics went into the second half with a 16-point lead.
Instead of grasping at straws and blaming the weather outside or the time of the game, Forsberg and Chin should have referenced the fact that the Celtics shot 25% on three-point attempts and 35.1% from the field in the game as the real reason for the Celtics’ collapse.
But on the off chance that the start time is a problem for the Celtics, they will face the same issues in Game 2 of the series on Wednesday night, as that game has the same scheduled start time on TNT.
