With a game like this one you can look at a lot of different things and point to them as reason(s) for the loss. And you probably are correct. A bad call, a funny bounce, a missed shot, a momentary lapse, a miscalculation, etc. can all be looked at correctly as to a reason for the loss. This kind of thing can eat you up and maybe the best thing is to forget about it all and just move on. That won't take the sting away but dwelling on the minutiae won't bring back a victory nor will it quell the angst.
Now, having said that I want to add my two cents and focus on what I thought harmed the Bruins yesterday. I guess it's a part of the minutiae but in a more general tone rather than an individual play.
Yesterday the Bruins got all of two rebounds and zero free throw attempts from the #5 position. That's from just over 33 minutes of play. That's just not productive enough. Another glaring aspect was Reed Bailey. Bailey got 24 points yesterday, 14 points above his average and was almost perfect from the field and line. There were 72 free throws attempted by both teams and Bailey had the most attempts of any player on either team.
I know that there is a lot of switching done on defense and players are often defending out of their position, but generally back court guys defend back court guys and front court guys are generally responsible for front court guys. So, Bailey being a big means that generally the Bruin bigs would be responsible for Bailey. He scored well beyond his average and got fouled a lot and he took no threes. The Bruins need more effective defense from their bigs.
Another general failure was the Bruins inability to keep in front of their man. Toward the end Indiana's most effective offensive ploy was to give the ball to Wilkerson, clear out the right side, and let him drive and score. The Bruins just couldn't keep him in front even though everybody knew what Indiana and he were going to do. Often Indiana just kept exploiting Perry's defense during that stretch.
Cronin in his presser stated that the Bruins' defense was terrible all game long. I don't quite see that but I do see that their defense abandoned them and was a major factor for their loss, not to mention the egregious out of bounds call that robbed the Bruins of a third overtime and possibly a victory.
All in all I thought it was a great game, The Bruins played with a lot of heart and spunk. I thought they played fairly well in spite of their defensive travails. It was the kind of game where both teams deserved to win but someone has to lose. Unfortunately it was the Bruins. Time to move on.