Celtics Take Ownership For Costly Shortcomings From Loss To Warriors

It was the long-awaited, much-anticipated matchup marked on Jayson Tatum’s calendar — at least it should’ve been — but it didn’t live up to the hype. The Boston Celtics couldn’t overcome an uncharacteristic first-half slip-up in Wednesday night’s 118-112 loss to the Golden State Warriors at TD Garden.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr energized the TD Garden crowd; however, a lackluster first-half Celtics offense drained it quickly. Boston committed 10 turnovers, shot 35.1% from the field, missed 14 total 3-pointers, and entered halftime trailing Golden State, 51-40. Granted that’s a double-sided coin. On the one hand, Boston’s defense was effective in keeping the Warriors at bay, but on the other hand, the offense produced its weakest single-quarter performance (yet) in the second frame (16 points).

The Celtics, suffering their first loss at home this season and the first since Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals over five months ago, didn’t make any excuses when looking back at the overall missed opportunity.

“They were blitzing us, took us out of our rhythm, and then after that, we started making the simple two-side pass, and it opened things up,” Payton Pritchard told reporters postgame, per NBC Sports Boston. “But we just got more physical and handled their pressure more. … We weren’t physical enough with the ball. We had a lot of turnovers and stuff like that which led to them getting out and stuff like that. So it’s just being strong with (the ball).”

Pritchard had been off to a red-hot start himself, entering a premature Sixth Man of the Year candidacy discussion, but also couldn’t get it going early. He was held 0-for-4 from 3-point range by Golden State’s defense, which is typically Pritchard’s scoring sanctuary. Without it, the 6-foot-1 guard becomes an offensive liability and that was the case until the pendulum began swinging Boston’s way, first through its 41-point third quarter.

Tatum tapped into his Kerr-fueled motivation, too, finishing as the game’s leading scorer with a 32-point performance on 10-of-20 shooting. Boston took a four-point lead with 5:04 minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, yet failed to keep it up. In those final minutes, Golden State grabbed four offensive rebounds — finishing with 15 total — and made the Celtics pay a hefty price once Tatum took his eye off Warriors sharpshooter Buddy Hield, who sunk the clutch three to put Golden State ahead, 111-104, with 46.3 seconds left. That was the early end to Boston’s semi-valiant comeback bid.

“Kevon Looney, did he have what? Two putbacks? Three putbacks?” Pritchard said, per NBC Sports Boston. “Buddy Hield, we left him open on the open three so it’s just the little things that we’re gonna look back at and be disappointed in ourselves because we definitely could’ve controlled the outcome. … We’ll learn from it and get better from it.”

The reigning champions lost only four times at home last season. Granted, even with an almost completely identical roster — Boston lost Svi Mykhailiuk and Oshae Brissett to free agency in the offseason — the circumstances are different.

Jaylen Brown missed a third straight appearance due to a hip flexor injury, plus Kristaps Porzingis, who could return in December, has yet to suit up. Without Porzingis, eight months ago, Boston blew Golden State out of the water in last season’s 140-88 thrashing at TD Garden.

Moving forward, the Celtics can only tweak where necessary and turn the page with now two (very) preventable losses logged through their first nine games.

“I think we did a great job responding to their physicality,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said, as seen on NBC Sports Boston’s postgame coverage. “Anytime two good teams play together, it comes down to the details at the end of the day and I think they executed a little bit better than we did. I thought our execution was better (in the second half). Our spacing was better, we found the reads faster and we were just as physical on offense as we were on defense. … We gave up three offensive rebounds and missed Buddy Hield on an open three, and just the small details on the open floor.”

Boston has the Brooklyn Nets next up on Friday night.