The Celtics just didn’t have it Tuesday night, and Jaylen Brown knew it before he even got to Capital One Arena.
Boston was dealt an ugly 130-111 loss to the Washington Wizards — a team that wouldn’t even qualify for the play-in tournament had the season ended Tuesday. Brown, after dropping 41 points in the Celtics’ win over the San Antonio Spurs, ended the loss with 18.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla chalked it up to being an “off night,” and Brown revealed after the game even before tip things weren’t going Boston’s way.
“We’ve been playing good ball the last couple weeks,” Brown told reporters, per CLNS Media. “(Tuesday), we just throw it away, get ready for the next one. It was a weird game. Traffic kind of messed everything up, threw everybody off. No excuse. We gotta be better, starting with me. We’ve been playing good basketball, just get back to it.”
Brown is no stranger to traffic and had issues getting to TD Garden earlier this season.
Once anything gets in the way of a pregame routine, though, it could throw off your whole night, which seems to be the case for the Celtics on Tuesday.
No one is hitting the panic button just yet, and the Celtics can respond in a big way when they play the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday in a game with major seeding implications. Tip from Fiserv Forum is set for 7:30 p.m. ET.
