Celtics Thoughts: Jaylen Brown has a plan, Luke Kornet has shocked the fouls and more

BOSTON – The long winning series of the Celtics ended on Wednesday evening without any appetizer on the pitch. Joe Mazzulla pulled the last of his key players during a timeout with 5:02 remained in a loss of 124-103 in the heat.

Here are nine thoughts of the first loss of Boston from March 12, one for each of the games of the winning series that Miami triggered.

1. For Mazzulla, the decision to pull the appetizers arrived before usual.

“Joe probably got the best reading from all of us,” said Derrick White. “If you ask me, the players, we will always say that we want to stay. He felt as if it were too late, or whatever he thought, and I have not disagreed with him. Just go to the next game and continue to build.”

2. Returning to the TD Garden after a long road trip, Mazzulla must have perceived that his team did not have enough energy to get a return. These situations have challenged Boston throughout the season. The Celtics have the opportunity to tie the Warriors 2015-16 for the best road record of all time, but they regularly followed long journey on the way by dropping the first game at home.

“It’s a bit difficult to say. Who really knows?” Luke Kornet said. “I feel like there was part of being on the road that is a bit, like a stressed environment of being on the street. And then you go home and, honestly, only happy to go back to the family and things like that. But frankly, it is not really an excuse for the nights as tonight. We have to do a better job to understand it and win those games.”

After going 3-1 on their first long season trip, the Celtics fell at the Golden State 118-112 during their first game in Boston. Since then, every journey of Celtics of four games or more has given way to a flop of belly similar to home. On January 10, the kings took a tour of Boston 114-97. On January 27, the Celtics lost a Heartbreaker 114-112 in Houston.

On Wednesday, after completing the first 6-0 trip to the history of franchise, Boston returned to TD Garden and has given his worst defensive performance since the Play-BY-Play era started in the 1996-97 season. The heat marked 144.2 points for 100 possessions in the twelfth efficient offensive game that any team has produced this season.

“We were traveling for 10, 12 days,” said Jaylen Brown. “It is not an excuse or anything else, but those first games, it is always difficult only from the point of view of the calibration. We have been to three different mergers. You have been away from home. You will come back and somehow we settle down, and then you must always play a basketball game. So we always drank. I have not fired the ball particularly well, and this put us in some places, and we turned it a little too much.”

3. The Celtics entered the first place on Wednesday evening to avoid free shots of the opponents. They sent the heat to the line 27 times. With the great men at Horford and Kristaps Porzingis as well as Jrue Holiday, the three fouls of the first half of Kornet have done more harm. In part due to the disgusting problem of the great man, Mazzulla used Jayson Tatum in the center at the end of the first half, so he returned to the tactic to start the third quarter.

“Just playing with a little speed,” said Mazzulla. “I thought we had finished the first half well with that, and Luke had three fouls, so I wanted to preserve some of this, especially go up and then start the quarter, then continuing to find several ways to have an impact on the game.”

That small formation – which also presented Torrey Craig, Sam Hauser, Brown and White – renounced 14 points in the first 2:47 of the second half on a flow of crushed and layup. After one of the defensive failures allowed Kel’El Ware to enter an easy -crushed crushed, Hauser raised his arms, clearly frustrated due to the lack of execution by his team.

4. Mazzulla sent Kornet to check -in in the game immediately after that game. Kornet closed with 14 points and six rebounds in 21 minutes that highlighted its value for the Celtics. Especially with the FrontCourt Shorthanding, his presence has changed the game. The Celtics exceeded Miami of three points on Kornet’s game time and were bludoned by 24 points in the 27 minutes in which he sat.

“I think he’s really good at projecting only different covers,” said Mazzulla. “So this year he is seeing several matches. They started the game in a coverage, they moved to a different one, but it only does an excellent job creating advantages. Just go to who he is, an altruistic player, trying to open the boys. But he can do it and read it in real time.

5. Although he made the difference while he was on the pitch, Kornet collected his third foul with 5:11 remained in the second quarter and underwent out for the rest of the first half less than a minute later. It seemed upset for the types of fouls he collected.

“They were also all bad fouls, especially the third,” said Kornet. “I simply took my hand there. I really didn’t try to play. So yes, it was definitely something to try to avoid, and I think only a small lack of discipline on my part.”

6. Seven minutes in the second quarter, White tried to shake the Celtics. After being stripped by Kyle Anderson, White races back to overturn Anderson dribbling. With anything but overflow, White forced Anderson to give up the plans to try a layup. And when Anderson splated a passage behind him to Bam Adebayo, White quickly constituted several meters of earth to steal the ball from the great man. In transition, White then kicked off a sequence of beautiful steps that also concluded by finding Payton Pritchard for a 3-pointer corner.

This sequence >>> pic.twitter.com/4unq68xh4t

– Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 3, 2025

White’s energy saved possession.

7. He could not illuminate the Celtics. After being left behind 22 points at the beginning of the third quarter, they used a 25-6 race to cut the deficit to a single possession, but the charge stopped there. Miami pushed the two -digit advantage by the end of the third quarter and moved away in the fourth.

“We are all pissed off,” said Mazzulla. “I mean, we all hate losing. And that was my message. It was a good reminder that losing still sucks. So I love the fact that the staff are unhappy. The guys are pissed off. He is not happy, but we have to return and do again the next day.”

8. Despite his frustration for the loss, Mazzulla liked what he saw from Brown, who had to do with a problem with his right knee. The All-Star produced 24 points, nine rebounds and four assists for 29 minutes.

“I thought it was good,” said Mazzulla. “I think he puts my feet under him, I liked the way he arrived at his points. I like the way he competed defensively. For me, he continues to seem better and better every night, much more at ease out there. So it was positive for us and it’s nice to see. He must continue to do so, so I like what he did tonight.”

9. Brown said he was still playing through pain. The injury is something that is expected to continue to manage the rest of the regular season. He limited him enough that he said he needed to “come struggling that every night I will not feel like my normal self”.

Even like that, Brown considered Wednesday’s trip “a good step forward” for him. He said he and the medical staff have a plan to physically trigger him in time for the playoffs.

“We have a good plan in place,” said Brown. “So come to the playoffs, my goal is to feel best.”

(Photo: Bob Deciara / Image Images)