When Jim Boylen called for time to quell an 8-0 run Enes Kanter with 1:25 left in the third quarter, something about the game felt over.
A juiceless United Center crowd, which buzzed merrily along through the contest's first 35-and-a-half minutes, was evidence of that. The Celtics, up 83-71, were pulling away, and the dreaded third quarter had struck again.
“We gotta be more locked in, have more sense of urgency,” Kris Dunn said of the team’s struggles out of halves this season. “We have to have awareness to understand that we have been poor in the third quarter.