In a career night, Dillon Brooks leads Rockets over Celtics in thriller: 8 takeaways
The Rockets got two huge performances that put them in a position to win.Â
After one of the more interesting and exciting games of the season, the Celtics fell apart defensively on the final two possessions as Dillon Brooks and the Rockets claimed a 114-112 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
Dillon Brooks and Amen Thompson had career nights
Before we get to the Celtics’ defensive failures in the last minute, the Rockets got two huge performances that put them in a position to win.
The first was Dillon Brooks, whose name will not elicit positive reactions around Boston after his antics but whose 3-point shooting and defense was a massive difference maker for the Rockets. Brooks got hot early, making five 3-pointers in the first half, which nearly equaled his career high, before making five more in the second half en route to an absurd 36-point outing. Brooks was shooting 31.3 percent from three prior to Monday’s game, but he punished the Celtics with 10-for-15 shooting from deep and 13-for-23 shooting overall.
Amen Thompson, meanwhile, scored a career-high 33 points on 13-for-19 shooting to go with 10 rebounds. Thompson is as explosive an athlete as exists in a league chock full of explosive athletes, and he looked every bit a future star in whatever role he ends up filling.
The Rockets are really good. Monday’s loss might leave a bad taste for Celtics fans given Brooks’ yapping and the final two defensive possessions, but for once, the Celtics didn’t lose because they were disengaged or shooting poorly.
Dillon Brooks and Amen Thompson just beat them.
“I think tonight, our game plan, nobody would’ve expected Dillon Brooks to hit 10 threes,” Jaylen Brown said frankly. “It happened tonight, so I think you live with it.”
The last two defensive possessions were ugly
Okay, now we can address the final two defensive possessions, on which the Celtics completely fell apart in a way that was pretty jarring given how much good execution happened first.
First, with 11.8 seconds, the Celtics sent out a double-big lineup featuring Kristaps Porzingis and Luke Kornet. Presumably, that was an effort to both protect the rim and protect against an offensive rebound, but the Rockets blew that up by dragging everyone away from the rim. At the last second, Porzingis and Kornet seemingly decided to switch their coverages – Porzingis picking up Thompson as he went high toward the half-court line, while Kornet took Sengun.
But Thompson, it turned out, may have been a diversion, and Sengun caught Kornet off guard by slipping to the hoop. Kornet, thoroughly beaten, hacked ineffectually at the ball, and Sengun gave the Rockets the lead with a slam.
On the other end, however, Jayson Tatum beat Thompson comfortably off the bounce, shouldering the 21-year-old aside as he neared the rim for a layup that tied the game. The Celtics just needed a defensive stop to force what promised to be an incredibly entertaining overtime.
Instead, Kornet got caught in another defensive miscommunication. This time, the Celtics removed Porzingis from the game at the last second as the Rockets set up. Kornet and Jaylen Brown seemed to communicate a pre-switch with Kornet in the corner on Jalen Green, who was likely going to curl around and get the ball off a screen, but both Kornet and Brown hesitated for a split second, which was costly. Thompson took the ball against Brown, who was off-balance, and made a play – creating a ton of space with a step-back jumper.
The Celtics were out of timeouts and were forced to settle for a Payton Pritchard heave to end the game, which wasn’t particularly close.
The back-to-back breakdowns were a disappointing end to an impressive performance by Kornet, who finished with 18 points on 8-for-9 shooting and seven rebounds.
Joe Mazzulla claimed the blame
According to Mazzulla, he was at fault for the final two plays.
“Those were my fault,” Mazzulla said. “It didn’t put us in the best matchups. I saw the play that they were trying to run. I tried to change the matchups. They put our guys in a tough spot. So that’s a tough one, because I thought our guys did everything to win the game, and they put us in position to win it, and I didn’t help them at the end. So both those plays, 100 percent on me.”
For his part, Kornet took the blame for the Sengun basket.
“I put myself in a bad position on that play,” Kornet said. “I should’ve just fouled him or just taken him out. I don’t know. For whatever reason, I kind of got off to the side of him and then he cut, and I was behind him.”
On the second play, Kornet said the timing was confusing.
“It’s a weird thing of, I don’t know, just kind of the ball being handed in and stuff and then kind of second-guessing it at the same time because we’re trying to get in position,” he said. “It just didn’t play out in a great way. […]
“I think it was a good move to try to get that going, but it just sort of played out in an unfortunate way.”
Jayson Tatum didn’t score in the first half
Tatum had a weird game, impacted greatly by the Rockets’ defensive gameplan.
In the first half, Tatum went scoreless – the first time he didn’t manage a bucket in the first 24 minutes since 2021. Tatum did dish out five assists, but the Celtics got their offense largely from other sources.
In the third quarter, Tatum got loose, scoring 15 points in a variety of ways as the Rockets finally started to break down, but Udoka countered by doubling Tatum repeatedly in the fourth quarter. As a result, Tatum piled up seven assists, but the Celtics’ spacing deserted them at times and so did their decision-making, which limited his total despite plenty of good passing.
The good news for the Celtics? Tatum seemed to make all of the right decisions, and they are at their best when he makes the right decisions consistently – even more so than when he scores at a high level.
“I thought he did a great job finding the balance of facilitating, putting two on the ball, and then creating,” Mazzulla said. “So I thought we got good looks throughout the game on those coverages.”
Tatum finished with 19 points on 5-for-14 shooting.
Al Horford was an odd DNP-CD
Horford was listed as questionable prior to the game with a toe injury, but he was ruled available shortly beforehand.
Kornet, however, started the game alongside Porzingis, and when Mazzulla’s first substitution was Neemias Queta and Xavier Tillman, it was clear that Horford was unexpectedly unavailable.
“We found out at the start of the game, two minutes before the game,” Mazzulla said. “He did everything he could to get ready in shootaround, did everything he could in his shooting time, and then right before the game, he just didn’t feel comfortable going. But he did everything he could to play.”
Horford’s absence – in conjunction with Sam Hauser and Derrick White, who both sat out as well – led to some truly odd lineups, which included:
- Holiday, Pritchard, Brown, Tillman, Queta (which … might not be worth revisiting).
- Pritchard, Tatum, Walsh, Tillman, Queta (not bad, but may have been entirely carried by Tatum and a hot-shooting Pritchard)
- Springer, Pritchard, Tatum, Walsh, Kornet (again, not bad – Springer looked decent in seven minutes)
Porzingis’ foul trouble didn’t help
The impact of Horford’s absence was exacerbated when Porzingis picked up a cheap third foul in the first half. Porzingis spent much of the game in foul trouble, which was a shame because he started blazing hot from 3-point range and finished with 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting in just 25 minutes.
Porzingis looks more and more like himself, which helps the Celtics enormously – as long as he remains on the floor.
Ime Udoka got his first win against the Celtics since leaving
Udoka, of course, was suspended and then later let go for multiple violations of team rules and an improper relationship with a Celtics employee prior to the start of the 2022-23 season, one year after helping lead the Celtics to the NBA Finals.
Since then, Udoka was yet to win against the Celtics prior to Monday’s game. Surely the win meant something?
“It’s just a game to me,” Udoka said. “We came here last year, so that’s over with. It’s Cleveland and Boston more so than anything about me being back here. It’s playing against the high-tier teams and we’ve played them three in a row now and got three wins.
“So growth for us regardless, but doesn’t mean anything if we go down to Atlanta and lay an egg tomorrow. So they all count as one.”
A lighter schedule
After some tough opponents, the Celtics have a couple of lighter games ahead, starting with Wednesday’s contest against the Bulls at TD Garden. They travel to New Orleans to face the Pelicans on Friday.
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