Yes shooters don't lose it completely but they can have slumps. And there are a couple of extraneous factors here: new basketball and lots of summer ball to name 2.I think the better case for him improving is.... he's got a long track record at this point of being a good shooter, guys don't usually just lose it like that
I think the other issue, as noted above, is that JT takes really tough shots down the stretch. That's also the function of how teams are playing him - if you noticed, whenever JT and JB had the ball in crunch time last night, the Spurs basically moved everyone towards them. JB noted as much in his post-game comments:
However, his focus was on Boston’s struggles throughout the entire frame offensively in a game where Boston managed just 41 second half points. A lack of ball movement down the stretch led to many empty possessions for Boston and Brown sees a path out of those struggles with a shift in philosophy.
“We’ve gotta keep moving, keep cutting with pace,” Brown said. “I thought in the fourth quarter we got away from what we wanted to do and stuff like that. We were rushing a little bit. We should have taken our time.”
What was working for the Celtics earlier in the game? Using the team’s talented bigs as facilitators on the offensive end of the floor.
“I think even in this game when we went on good offensive stretches,” Brown explained. “The ball was coming from Al, coming from Rob, etc. and we were cutting, setting screens, and taking advantage of some of those actions how they were guarding us. And we gotta make teams pay. We can’t just be out there playing basketball, we gotta read the game a little bit better.”
JB and JT have to figure out ways to prevent the defenses from loading up against them so much or the Cs will continue to struggle down the stretch.Hopefully this is all a learning curve.