BOSTON — For as great as the Celtics looked over the first 16 minutes of Friday’s game against the Nets, they were horrid for the rest of the game. The C’s blew a 28-point lead in their most embarrassing loss of the season in a 115-105 defeat to the Nets, seeing their 10-game win streak over Brooklyn come to an end.
There were multiple reasons why the Celtics lost. Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said his team lost in every way analytically, whether it was the turnovers, offensive rebounding and elsewhere. It’s also life in the current iteration of the NBA, where even a 28-point lead isn’t safe because of the droves of 3-pointers. Mazzulla pointed to that postgame, which is why he said he hopes this isn’t a trend for the Celtics.
“I think this is a one-off, it’s something that’s happened very, very rarely,” Mazzulla said. “I think it’s very hard for a player to understand that because of the rate at which people play offense, if you have four empty possessions, those can be costly at the other end.”
- Related: Pre-registration for mobile betting in Massachusetts is live on BetMGM. Get started with $200 in bonus bets
Mazzulla said his team respected the Nets, which is why they were able to build such a commanding lead. The Celtics led by 21 points after the first quarter, tacking on a few more points as the Nets weren’t hitting their 3-pointers. But once Brooklyn was able to gather some momentum in the second quarter — including a quick 9-0 run — the Celtics weren’t able to fend off the visitors.
There was also some carelessness from the Celtics. They turned the ball over 19 times Friday. There were also some defensive lulls that allowed the Nets back into the game in the first place. The Celtics also weren’t able to pick up their intensity even when the Nets kept whittling away at their lead.
“We have to be able to learn from it,” Mazzulla said. “So I’ll be more upset if it happens again, if we’re in another situation. More upset about the Cleveland situation (almost blowing a lead late) than I am about tonight, and the standpoint of finishing a game and being up and ending again. So that’s something that we have to learn from.”
- Massachusetts online sports betting is coming soon. Learn more about the top sportsbook operators coming to MA such as FanDuel Massachusetts, DraftKings Massachusetts and Caesars Sportsbook Massachusetts
Once Brooklyn took the lead at the 6:11 mark in the third quarter, it never gave Boston back the lead. The Celtics did show some some life in the comeback attempt, but the damage had been done. The Nets flipped the vibes around as the Celtics were instead the ones wondering what went wrong by the final buzzer.
Jayson Tatum, celebrating his 25th birthday Friday, said they can’t do anything about the loss now that it’s over. So it’s about flipping the page. The C’s have a huge test as they host a red-hot Knicks squad that has won eight straight games. But the Celtics do have a chance to bounce-back and show Friday was just a blip and not a potentially-worrisome trend roughly a month before the beginning of the playoffs.
“Just gotta be mature and respond,” Jaylen Brown said. “We can’t take the game for granted. I know we was up big, but we gotta play each possession like it’s a tie game or we’re down. We let them get going, let them get some confidence and at that moment, when the momentum shifted, they became hard to stop.”