The Boston Celtics opened their 2020-21 season with two of the best teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference.
The Celtics passed their season-opening test against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, but came out on the wrong end of a lopsided loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Christmas Day, a 123-95 verdict.
But even though the Celtics fell apart down the stretch, playing what Jaylen Brown called 3 1/2 quarters of good basketball, Boston did express a glass-half-full mentality after the defeat. It's just two games into a 72-game season, after all, and they're not going to go against All-Stars like Kyrie Irving (37 points) and Kevin Durant (29 points) every night.
"The benefit of playing these two games against two great teams is we can be better, we can assess the bar and now you know what you have to strive for," Marcus Smart told reporters Friday, as seen on NBC Sports Boston's postgame coverage. "It’s a good way to test us as a team to see where we’re at and where we have to get to. Like I said, theres definitely things we can clean up, it's only the second game, but we can't lose any sleep over it."
Head coach Brad Stevens expressed much of the same. And in comparing the Celtics' embarrassing preseason loss against Brooklyn to the regular-season contest, Stevens thought it was an improvement.
"I don’t think there’s any question, I said this last week when we played them and then (Friday), I thought we competed way better (Friday) than we did last week. I thought we had the right frame of mind," Stevens told reporters. "The game got away from us there in the start of the fourth and they poured it on.
"That’s the thing, they're very capable of pouring it on. I think they could be the deepest team in the NBA and, quite possibly, certainly in the conversation for the best," Stevens continued. "We know we have a lot of work to do, that’s very clear. And we know who we have to shoot for, that’s good to know. I thought our guys gave a good effort at the start and then it just got away from us in the fourth."
Boston never cut its deficit to within three possessions in the fourth quarter. The Celtics trailed by 14 or more points over the final six minutes. Brooklyn outscored Boston by 31 points in the second half, after the Celtics held a three-point lead at the break.
Here are some other takeaways from Boston's loss to Brooklyn:
-- Jaylen Brown played well for a second consecutive game, scoring a team-high 27 points on 11-for-25 from the field. Brown, who now averages 30 points per game in a limited two-game sample, also contributed eight rebounds.
Brown, however, talked more about what the Nets did to put pressure on the Celtics after the game.
"I think their shot-making ability puts a lot of pressure on us," Brown said. "We didn't execute on offense as good as we possibly could. I thought our defense was solid, but against them it needs to be better than solid. It's got to be great. ... I thought once they started making shots, we felt the pressure a little bit. That comes with poise, that comes with experience, and we're going to continue to build on that."
The Celtics shot just 37.8 percent from the field (37-for-98) while recording just a 29.6 percent clip from long range (8-for-27).
-- Tristan Thompson played 21 minutes against the Nets on Friday. The first-year Celtic continues to be on a minutes restriction as he deals with a hamstring injury.
Thompson finished with eight points and eight rebounds, but had a hard time while being given the task of guarding Kevin Durant on the defensive end.
"I thought Tristan really battled, Tristan did a good job," Stevens told reporters. "We have to get better in other areas. Isolation defense on Kevin Durant is an issue for every person in the world, that’s how good Kevin Durant is. But I think all you can do is battle, and you got to just be better at taking everything else away. There's certain things we can do a lot better than we did."
-- Thompson wasn't the only one who saw a more limited amount of minutes against the Nets.
Smart played 32 of the 48 minutes while Brown played 31. Both were impacted a bit by foul trouble (each finished with five), and the Celtics clearly struggled offensively with them off the floor
When Jayson Tatum (20 points in 36 minutes) wasn't on the court, it was much of the same. But Stevens noted after the loss how, especially with the short offseason and extremely limited preseason, limiting minutes could be something the Celtics do as the season ramps up.
"It's important that we're very alert to that, and it's a great opportunity for other guys to come in and be impactful," Stevens said. "And, at the same time, we’ll play those guys as much as we think it's responsible right now."
Semi Ojeleye (nine points, four rebounds in 14 minutes) and rookie Payton Pritchard (seven points, two steals in 25 minutes) were some of the impactful players off the bench for Boston. First-rounder Aaron Nesmith played nine minutes in the fourth quarter.
-- The 1-1 Celtics will travel to Indiana for two consecutive road games against the Pacers, the first of which is Sunday.
