Isaiah Thomas has had it up to the top of his 5-foot-9 frame with Boston's 'unacceptable' play

The Boston Celtics need to get off the road, coach Brad Stevens could use a break, and Isaiah Thomas could use some help.

Thomas, the Celtics’ two-time All-Star and diminutive fringe MVP candidate, could also use a break, and a chance to get off the road.

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The road brought MVP chants, from Los Angeles’ Boston-expat crowd, to the Staples Center for Thomas on Monday night. It also brought yet another loss for the C’s, the team’s second in a row and fifth in eight games, as the squad attempts to make its way toward the Eastern Conference playoffs unfettered and without pain in five weeks.

Getting through February and March, though, always presents a struggle. Especially when your team is forever married to trade rumors, and especially when you stand just 5-foot-9 in a land of NBA giants. Thomas, understandably, sort of buckled following the end of his team’s 116-102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday, a defeat suffered without center Al Horford.

From Chris Forsberg at ESPN, via Tom Ley at Deadspin:

The night didn’t end with the crumpling, though, which makes for uneasy news for C’s fans:

“Everybody in the locker room,” huh? So, like, the All-Star in Thomas, and third-year backup center Kelly Olynyk, and Terry Rozier and his uncomfortable entry pass habits, and, possibly … celebrated Boston coach Brad Stevens?

Asked what he meant by being frustrated with experimenting in Game 63, Thomas said only, “You can watch film. You know what it is.” Pressed on whether it was the lineups, he remained silent until the next question came.

For context, via Deadspin, here is a clip of Thomas detailing his frustrations:

The Celtics didn’t give away a game on Monday night. The Clippers are a damn good basketball team styled in the orthodox way under coach and president Doc Rivers, and the team is more than welcome to defend its home court in ways that remind us that a “B”-grade in the West (the Clippers are ranked fourth in the conference) still seems comparable to an “A”-grade out East.

Especially when tossing in the oft-referenced rebounding woes that the second-seeded Celtics have dealt with all season. The Clippers are hardly a beastly offensive rebounding team — Doc’s squads have prioritized getting back in transition over attacking the offensive glass for a decade — but Boston is the NBA’s fourth-worst defensive rebounding squad, and it showed at times on Monday.

Raw rebound numbers are rarely telling in this setting, but the Clips did out-rebound the C’s significantly in the second half and in the game (by 10) overall. Super-small power forward Jae Crowder led Boston with eight boards in 35 minutes, an impressive mark, and centers Olynyk and Amir Johnson (not ideal, defensively, in this contest) combined for a solid 12 caroms in nearly 44 combined minutes.

The issues dive deeper than the easy glass kiss-off, though, and the extended dimensions probably added to what we saw even when Boston had a sensible second-half lead: Isaiah Thomas, still skulking around even when the lay-ups were going in, and the whistles (he made eight of nine free throws on his way toward a game-high 32 points) were going his way.

This team, even 63 games in, still isn’t comfortable with some of its lineups. There was constant miscommunication down the stretch defensively on Monday night in ways that cannot be explained away by the absence of Horford, and in ways that don’t excuse Thomas.

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Thomas might be excused for giving little more than a lick and a promise to defense on nights where he has to score 32 points, and he can hardly be counted on as a game-changer at his height. But there were still several defensive plays on which Thomas stood in stark contrast (especially in terms of communication) to Chris Paul. Especially as Paul worked his typical CP3 magic, creating switches and mismatches, continually attacking the Boston defense’s weakest points, taking advantage of defensive lulls to create quick, if not aesthetically wonderful, Old Man Scores.

With Horford and do-everything forward Jonas Jerebko out, though, the C’s decided to take some chances on some smaller lineups. It’s tough to find the bad guy when everyone has a role in the missteps, though.

Versatile reserve Marcus Smart was around for both the good times and bad in the third quarter, when the Celtics seemed in control following a 14-3 run, and when they helped give a four-point lead to the Clippers by the end of the third quarter. Johnson got a taste of the sweet and sour, as did each of the other Celtics starters. The same could not be said for poor second-year power forward Jordan Mickey, chosen to come off the pine for a short stint late in the third, leaving the contest with a -14 mark after just 2 1/2 minutes’ worth of point-less, rebound-less action.

In what should be the warm days, working in the wake of last Wednesday’s satisfying (if a little too close) home win over the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers, the Celtics are pissed. They’ve lost two straight, and the team’s grasp on the No. 2 seed in the East seems as tenuous as ever. The Washington Wizards, who have beaten Boston two times in three tries this season, have been winning games at a 72 percent clip (that’s a 60-win season) since Dec. 2.

And Washington plays the Phoenix Suns, to whom Boston just lost, on Tuesday. Washington is just 2 1/2 games behind the Celtics with 22 to play.

That’s the problem. The NBA season is far too long, and the Celtics and Wizards still have five weeks to bash this out. Frustration can set in, even when the glass half-full approach is there for the embracing.

The Celtics have been on the road forever. The team has played 10 of 13 contests away from Boston over the last month, and it still has two games to go (at Golden State on Wednesday, nationally televised, and a final game all the way on FRI-DAY in Denver’s thin air, against a Nuggets team that has been on a Wizards-like run of its own) before it can head home.

Those last few home games, dotted throughout this extended trip? That Cleveland win, a loss against Atlanta, and a victory over the always-frustrating 76ers. All told, the team will have spent five weeks mostly away from home – with the All-Star “break” tossed in the middle – by the time it lines up for what could be a schedule loss in its first game back in Boston, on national TV, against the Chicago Bulls on Sunday afternoon.

That’s beastly, and when you mix in the trade deadline intrigue — Danny Ainge bet against dealing any number of future professional 19-year-old lottery stars in exchange for veteran help to pair with the 28-year-old Thomas and 31-year-old Horford — the whole situation can enervate.

Until Thomas, team leader, brought Cleveland and warming context back into the picture:

It should hurt, and the next three games could only add to the thrashing. This is the bad break that Boston has earned, though, after winning 24 of 31 games in winter and establishing itself as a contender in the East. Expectations are good, and room to play with rotations in March (ask any championship coach) is great.

Stevens is staring down a Cavaliers team that just lost yet another center, and a Toronto Raptors team that plays way, way better with Serge Ibaka at center …

… than it does with a traditional lineup. Save the normalized, orthodox lineup for Rivers and his second-round defeats, we say. Play a little penny-foolish basketball in March and see if it leads to something bigger in May.

Stevens just has to keep Thomas happy during the development stage. With the Warriors and Nuggets waiting, we’ll just have to see how that plays out.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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