DHL Dan CLXII - Cleanup In Aisle 5

Some things are naturals together - bacon & eggs, Rum & Coke, and Shank and local pro sports teams on losing streaks:

Brad Stevens says Celtics have things to ‘clean up’, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while remembering a guy bellowing “We love ya, Cooz!” from the Garden’s upper deck 60 years ago Friday …

▪ Brad Stevens sees the same things you see. The Celtics president of basketball operations is ever-careful and diplomatic, but he knows the team isn’t playing great ball the way it was at this time last year. He sees the blown leads, Jayson Tatum’s struggles, the rugged learning curve for Joe Mazzulla, and the reliance on 3-pointers. He knows better than anyone what it’s like to coach today’s fundamentally challenged, social media-driven NBA talents.

The slumping, still-immature Celtics came into the weekend with 12 regular-season games remaining, having dropped 2½ games behind Milwaukee in the quest for the Eastern Conference’s top seed.

“I’m certainly not looking at it as the sky is falling, but we’ve got to clean some things up,” Stevens said after the Celtics’ 2-point win at Minnesota Wednesday. “If you look across the top of the East, we have not played as well out of the break as probably the other top five or six teams. We’re not in the playoffs tomorrow, but we’re not far.”