5 takeaways as Donovan Mitchell, Jazz win duel against Jaylen Brown and Celtics
Jaylen Brown's 33 points weren't quite enough.
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COMMENTARY
The Boston Celtics closed their lengthy West Coast road trip with a 122-108 loss to a Utah Jazz team that looks every bit the part of a genuine contender.
Five takeaways as the Celtics (finally) can turn their attention back home.
The Celtics looked tired, and the Jazz looked better.
In fairness to the Celtics, West Coast road trips are exhausting, and finishing a long one against perhaps the best team in the league right now is a tall task.
All of that said, the Jazz were just better, and probably would have been better even if the Celtics opened their road trip in Salt Lake City. The ball zipped around, and even when shots weren’t falling, Utah’s offense created looks that appeared sustainable. The Jazz defense, as expected, funneled Boston directly into Rudy Gobert, and Boston’s shots around the rim were all an adventure with Gobert in the paint. Donovan Mitchell obliterated mismatches in the third quarter, helping the Jazz build a double-digit lead.
“You can’t make mistakes against these guys,” Brad Stevens said. “They’re exceptionally well-oiled on offense. Just a special team to compete against, and when you make a mistake they make you pay.”
The Jazz have all the pieces — a young slashing superstar in Donovan Mitchell, good defense and a ton of shooting. Stevens compared them to the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, and upon closer examination, that statement holds some water.
The Celtics’ defensive strategy was pretty solid.
Early in the game, the Celtics made it clear they planned to switch everything (except for a few stretches in zone). At times, the Jazz (almost entirely Mitchell) punished them, but switching helped keep the Jazz away from the 3-point line for much of the game. The Jazz love to get teams in rotation by swinging the ball around the court, and Boston tried to take that element of their game away.
Utah, which put up 74 points in the second half, is just a difficult team to guard. Small breakdowns against a team with that much shooting and playmaking are magnified. In Tuesday’s choppy game, Utah’s offense had too much juice.
“They seem like they’re playing the best basketball right now,” Jayson Tatum said. “Guys over there are playing well, and they’re just clicking. They’re just playing really well together.”
Daniel Theis is blazing hot from 3-point range.
In December, Theis shot 2-for-13 from three. Since then, he is 21-for-36 from deep — 58 percent — after shooting 5-for-6 against Utah. The Jazz were willing to give Theis pick-and-pop 3-pointers, and Theis made them pay until he fouled out of the game in the fourth quarter.
Theis has always had the potential to be a good shooter. Back when reporters were allowed into the Celtics’ practice facility, Theis could be seen splashing triples from very deep with consistency. Clearly, he won’t keep shooting at nearly 60 percent, but if Theis forces teams to respect his range, he adds a lot of value for Boston’s slashers.
Jaylen Brown did indeed look fully healthy.
Before the game, Stevens said Brown — who sat two games in a row with a sore knee — was back to full strength, and he looked the part on Tuesday: 33 points on 12-for-20 shooting. Brown started the game with three straight triples and kept the Celtics in the game when Utah threatened to pull away. Having a couple of games off may have helped save his legs a bit as a long road trip wound down.
Brown told reporters after the game he struggled briefly in the third quarter with his knee, but that he felt significantly better after dealing with soreness for a couple of weeks.
Kemba Walker’s struggles continued.
At some point, noting Walker’s struggles over and over feels like picking on him, but his importance to this team can’t be overstated.
That’s why it’s so worrying for Boston that Walker simply couldn’t find the range for much of this road trip, and he didn’t appear to be getting much separation against Utah. Walker finished 2-for-12 from the floor and 1-for-4 from deep, posting just seven points. After Tuesday’s 1-for-8 performance inside the arc, he fell to 33.3 percent on 2-pointers.
We will keep saying it: There’s still time. Stevens still expresses confidence in Walker. But the concerns are certainly real.
“We need to look at ways to do a better job as a staff of helping him,” Stevens said. “Certainly, we’ll keep going, because he struggled to shoot it the last two games, but he’s doing a lot of other things. He’s a huge part of us, if we’re going to be what we want to be. I really, really believe that he will be that guy.”
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