In the universe of professional basketball, the little things are numerous and vast. Proper spacing on an inbound play, say, or ducking under a screen instead of fighting over the top of it and watching one of the best 3-point shooters in the business get a clean look with a half minute left. Little things.

When the Celtics win games, the little things don’t seem so obvious. A five-minute stretch where they suddenly, and without warning, abandon their offensive principles and being playing a series of one-one-one games? Forgotten and wiped out in the crashing wave of a 12-1 run somewhere in the middle of the second quarter.

The recriminations after the Celtics dropped a game to the Spurs were everywhere Sunday afternoon.

“Where we lost the game,” Doc Rivers said. “There was a stretch offensively, not defensively, there was a stretch of six minutes where the ball never moved. Whoever had it, shot it. Our guys felt each other being tired and thought ‘I'm going to win it for us [Sunday].’ And usually when you do that, you lose it.”

That would be the beginning of the fourth quarter, a time, not coincidentally, when the bench players were on the floor. Lately, on he defensive end, there have been signs of what you might call “slippage.”

“When you play the top teams in the league, it comes down to the little things,” Paul Pierce said. “I just thought the last couple of games at home it was one- or two-point games. Defensive transition late in the game, covering for one another, one possession…”

Little things.

The last time the Celtics went through any kind of soul-searching happened, probably coincidentally, the last time they played the Lakers. You all remember the particulars — 19-game winning streak, a loss and then a sudden inability to do basically anything right for two weeks.

It’s tempting to draw a quick parallel here and say the Celtics could be in line for another swoon. After all, the symptoms of the L.A. and San Antonio losses — slow defense, poor execution on offense — are the same now as the ones that plagued them in late December and early January. Also the schedule, then as now, is a bit daunting, with road games at New Orleans and Dallas and then a four-game west coast road swing after the All-Star break.

But this was Kevin Garnett after the Spurs game: “I don't think as a team we've hit a panic button or nothing like that.”

This is partly because they have been through this once already. “We won 19 straight and then we lost, what, five of six?” Ray Allen said before the Laker game. “That proved to me that we can bounce back from a tough stretch.”

Separate from the “five of six” swoon are the matchup problems that the Lakers and Spurs threw at the Celtics. Both teams employed a space the floor strategy, and in each of those games, the Celtics allowed them to shoot over 47 percent from the field and almost 40 percent from 3-point range, which is about eight points higher than normal. The Lakers, without Andrew Bynum, had Lamar Odom ostensibly playing the big forward position, and the Spurs had New Hampshire’s own Matt Bonner prowling the perimeter and knocking down shots.

Both teams took advantage of Garnett’s aggressiveness in defending the pick and roll, and the subsequent slow rotation back to the shooter. This is correctable. (Also, against the Spurs the Celtics gave up way too many offensive rebounds to a team that is the poorest offensive rebounding team in the league, which may simply be a sign of fatigue).

The other issue for the Celtics, which Rivers referenced, is the five-to-six minute stretches of poorly executed offense. Fortunately for them, help is also on the way in the form of Brian Scalabrine who is expected to return after the All-Star break from his concussions.

It took Rivers about 40 games to hit on a bench rotation that made sense, but when he did use Scalabrine more, a couple of things happened:

1. The floor spacing opened up.

2. Rivers was able to use Big Baby or Leon Powe, but didn’t have to use both at the same time.

3. Eddie House was able to get free for his 3-point barrage.

A healthy Scalabrine allows Rivers to play to the relative strengths of his reserves, and also sets up a little informal competition between Baby and Powe that seems to bring out the best in them. Beyond all that there is ample reason to believe that the Celtics are far better positioned to ride out this mini-slump. 

At the end of their 19-game winning streak, there were signs all around that things weren’t as good as the results made them seem. Little things. While not as long in duration, the 12-game streak was more in line with the kind of basketball the Celtics try to play, and thus provided a clearer picture of what they want to do.

We’ll find out more in the next few days about where this team is at, but the big picture is entirely dependent on the little things.

Paul Flannery is a regular contributor for WEEI.com. He can be reached at pflannery@weei.com.