The Celtics didn’t shy away from the reality of Saturday night’s battle with Kevin Durant, Ime Udoka, and the vertically advantageous Rockets.
It was a hard-to-bear reminder of where Boston sits on the
NBA totem pole.
Houston was running and gunning, dominating Boston in every measurable way. On the boards, they grabbed 53 rebounds to Boston’s 36. At the rim, they blocked 11 shots to Boston’s two. And from deep? The Rockets drilled 65.5% of their 29 three-pointers, while the Celtics managed just 31.8% on 44 attempts. It didn’t matter what Boston’s shorthanded group did; a belt-to-bottom beatdown was an inevitable destination for the Celtics, who were left speechless in the aftermath of their 128-101 defeat at TD Garden.
“We came ready to play, but we got popped tonight,” Payton Pritchard said. “So move on, get ready for the next one. I don’t even know if there is a takeaway of this game. I think you just kind of turn the page. They just punked us, and you gotta get ready for the next one.”
The Celtics took the floor on the second night of a back-to-back, playing their third night in four nights. Riding a three-game winning streak, they flipped their rebounding woes from a glaring weakness to a newfound strength that empowered the team’s red-hot stretch — the C’s outrebounded every opponent, both offensively and defensively. Boston’s streak carried them from the league’s 25th-ranked rebounding team to second overall, and atop the Eastern Conference, corralling an average of 50.7 rebounds per night.
But against Udoka’s starting lineup, which averaged 6-foot-8 in height, though Josh Okogie’s 6-foot-4 frame brought the number down slightly, everything changed.
Scoring became an uphill challenge for the Celtics, as they were held to 24 points through the first three quarters consecutively. Boston’s lineup of Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Neemias Queta, Josh Minott, and Pritchard combined to score 50 points on 20-of-52 shooting from the floor. Brown committed a game-high five turnovers, all of which ultimately forced Boston to waive the surrender flag early.
Getting to the line became a discrepancy that stood out like a sore thumb. Houston attempted 35 free throws, making 25, while Boston managed just 7-of-7 from the charity stripe.
“The free-throw rate is going to be correlated to your turnover percentage, so we forced 20 turnovers,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “I think it’s a combination of coaching the ones that you have to get better at — whether it’s taking away an individual tendency, whether it’s a bonus foul at the end of a quarter, whether it’s because we had a breakdown in our individual defense, and we’re going to protect the rim. You have to define those. So there’s always going to be that correlation between your free throws and your turnovers with the way that we want to play from a physicality standpoint.”
To put it simply, the Celtics couldn’t hang with the Rockets.
Udoka savored the joy of his personal Super Bowl, and ex-Celtics guard JD Davison contributed five points in eight minutes off the bench during his return to Boston.
The daunting challenge of competing with the Rockets came far too early for a Celtics team still light on experience.
It’s hard enough to defend Kevin Durant, a generational scorer. Add the challenge of guarding 6-foot-11 Jabari Smith Jr. and 6-foot-11 Alperen Şengün, alongside a frontcourt cobbled together with unproven newcomers, and the task quickly becomes too tall for these Celtics this early in the season.
There was nothing Boston could hang their hat on — not Mazzulla-ball, not grit, not even equal energy. Durant and the Rockets danced around the Celtics, firmly in command from the opening tip. Houston, at one point, stretched its lead to 36 points, keeping Boston ever catching up.
Perhaps it was pent-up exhaustion, or maybe the Rockets were simply finding their rhythm as a projected Western Conference powerhouse, flexing over the less-talented Celtics. Either way, everyone in Boston’s locker room agreed on one thing after Saturday night’s performance: it was a night to forget.
“Obviously, it wasn’t our night,” Mazzulla explained. “The Rockets played well — a good team, well coached, they were prepared, and this wasn’t our night tonight. So, to me, that happens over the course of a season. And so, it’ll be more important about how we respond on Monday at shootaround and into the game on Monday night (against the Jazz).”
