The Boston Celtics had put together a strong start on the defensive end against the San Antonio Spurs.
Boston forced San Antonio, who entered Wednesday’s game with the league’s best turnover percentage, to cough up the ball up eight times in the first 16 minutes. And then it all changed rather drastically midway through the second quarter.
“The whole last six minutes was really bad,” head coach Brad Stevens said rather bluntly after the Celtics lost 110-106 to the Spurs, as seen on NBC Sports Boston’s postgame coverage.
The Celtics weren’t making shots on the offensive end and it bled into their defense. It led to an extended 29-6 run for San Antonio, who made its final 10 shots of the half.
And it also ended about as badly as possible.
Jayson Tatum turned the ball over twice on inbounds passes in the final five seconds. The first went for a transition layup and the second, which came under the basket, led to an easy jumper in the paint as the horn sounded.
Boston’s once nine-point lead was now a 14-point deficit at the intermission.
“Yeah, that first half, we started well. The second unit played well. Just the last couple minutes of the second quarter they went on a run,” Tatum told reporters postgame. “And I take full responsibility of those turnovers. (We) got to inbound the ball. … I can’t have that, especially in those situations, so I definitely take responsibility for that.”
Fortunately for the Celtics, while it may have seemed like that could have lost them the game, they fought back to make it a tight contest down the stretch.
But without that debacle of a second quarter, who knows if they could have put the game away with what they did in the third.
The 10-7 Celtics will look to shake it off when they welcome the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers to TD Garden on Saturday.
