6 takeaways as Celtics blow 28-point lead in loss to Nets
"The area of growth and the opportunity comes in making sure it doesn't happen again."
The Celtics dropped a 115-105 loss to the Nets on Friday, letting a 28-point first-half lead fall into a double-digit loss.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Friday’s loss was a bad look and a missed opportunity to stay connected to the Bucks in the Eastern Conference standings — Milwaukee now leads by two games in the loss column.
Still, it was one loss. The Celtics got hot in the first quarter, and their shot selection suffered when they took a massive lead. Bad shots turned into empty possessions, the Nets started to heat up, and the lead melted. The Celtics woke up, but too much momentum had already switched sides, and the Nets pulled away in the second half — leading by as many as 16 in the fourth quarter.
A ranking of the Celtics’ worst games this season might have Friday’s game sandwiched between the 150-117 loss to the Thunder and the early-season loss to the Bulls, in which Chicago rallied from 19 points down to win by 18.
But the Celtics won the next game after their loss to the Thunder comfortably, smacking the Mavericks by nearly 30 on the road. It was a good statement win — a signal that the Celtics recognized how ridiculous it was that they gave up 150 points to a lottery team that didn’t even have its top scorer available.
Bad losses happen and aren’t usually season-defining, even if they do impact standings. Presumably, the Bucks won’t continue to win every game the rest of the way. The Celtics need to (and can) win some games to keep themselves in contention for the 1-seed, which would prevent a potential Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals from taking place in Milwaukee.
“To me, the area of growth and the opportunity comes in making sure it doesn’t happen again if we’re in that situation again,” Joe Mazzulla said.
2. In the locker room after the game, a reporter asked Tatum what the Celtics were feeling. The reporter offered “anger” and “disbelief” as possibilities.
“Disbelief, no. We didn’t play well,” Tatum said with a chuckle. “They played better than we did, and usually you lose. So it’s not disbelief. I don’t even know if it’s anger. We play too many games to be angry. Move on, get ready for the next one. It is what it is, essentially.”
Tatum isn’t wrong, which is part of the NBA’s problem right now. If “load management” really is a concern, the problem isn’t that players are soft (they aren’t) or that teams hire medical professionals who study how to keep their players healthy longer (that’s actually a good thing). The problem is that the regular season is 82 games, and for as long as that’s the case, players will sit. But even when they play, there will be too many games in a very good team’s season to get worked up over one loss, no matter how ugly.
The Celtics can’t afford to get too worked up about Friday’s loss. Friday is over. They have to get ready for Sunday already.
3. Joe Mazzulla doesn’t just want the Celtics to shoot a lot of 3-pointers. He believes the 3-point rate is “the most important stat in the game of basketball, because of the shot selection, and because of the ability to go on runs.”
On Friday, the Nets generated 44 3-point field-goal attempts, while the Celtics shot just 30. Both teams shot 31 percent from the field, but the Nets generated 18 more points behind the arc.
“When you get out-shot by 14 threes, the potential points there are crucial because that gives you way more shots, and that gives you more opportunities,” Mazzulla said. “And so, to me, I’m not really that surprised or worked up about it because a 24-point lead in the first half, in today’s NBA with the way offenses are, means almost nothing.”
To Mazzulla’s point, the difference in the second half — when the Celtics’ lead dwindled and turned into a deficit — was 23-12. To compound matters, the Celtics only made two of their attempts. That bogged down the offense, while the defense allowed 26 free-throw attempts (the Celtics took 20) and 13 offensive rebounds (the Celtics grabbed nine). Mazzulla credited Brooklyn’s switching defense as well.
But Mazzulla’s offensive philosophy is clear: Generate 3-pointers as often as possible.
“I actually was more nervous in the beginning of the game because we shot less threes, and they were shooting more,” he said. “… We were scoring, but it wasn’t because we were making shots. It was because we were getting layups, and they are a very analytically sound team.
“So I knew the tide was going to shift because they were going to continue to shoot threes, and if we didn’t play at a level of shooting threes and getting offensive rebounds and taking care of the ball, that was going to cost us.”
4. Jaylen Brown finished with 35 points, five rebounds, four assists, and three steals, shooting 15-for-27 from the field and 3-for-8 from 3-point range.
Brown said the Celtics were careless with Friday’s game.
“We had 19 turnovers — any time you got that many, that’s a reflection of being a little careless with the ball,” Brown said. “They shot more shots than us, and we should’ve played all the way through, but we didn’t.”
5. In a concerning moment, Robert Williams asked out of the game in the second half and went straight to the locker room. The Celtics later announced that Williams was out with hamstring tightness.
Joe Mazzulla said he hadn’t yet spoken with Williams postgame.
6. The Nets dealt the entire structure of their team at the trade deadline, and they have lost seven of their last 10 games. Their roster has a lot of solid role players and little star power.
But the early returns on new acquisition Mikal Bridges are very promising. Bridges put up 38 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists while shooting 13-for-22 from the field. Bridges had only scored 30 points twice in his career prior to Friday’s game, but since joining the Nets, he has scored 45, 31, and now 38. Add his obsessive (and remarkable) availability and his defense, and the Nets appear to have picked up an excellent player with room to grow into a bigger role.
Bridges buried the Celtics with a flurry of layups, jumpers, and 4-for-6 3-point shooting. A reporter asked Bridges if scoring so much was particularly satisfying or surreal after only topping 30 twice in his career.
“Nah, I mean, even in Phoenix, I wasn’t tripping on my role at all,” Bridges said. “I was just continuing to get better. I think when I got traded, it was kind of at the right time, because when everyone was out in Phoenix, I had to take up another role offensively and be more aggressive. By the time I got traded, I was just in this great rhythm, and I was confident. It was just great timing.”
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The Celtics will look to bounce back against the Knicks on Sunday, both from Friday’s result as well as their recent loss at Madison Square Garden.
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