Just when it seemed the Celtics were finding ways to work around their rebounding woes, Monday night’s matchup against the Jazz reminded them it’s still a work in progress.
It was easy (and understandable)
to chalk up Saturday night’s blowout loss to the Rockets as a “scheduled loss.” Houston had the size advantage, Boston was playing its third game in four nights, and the Rockets’ 66% 3-point shooting couldn’t have been predicted by anyone’s BINGO card. No shame in taking that beating. But with a full 24 hours of rest before clocking back in at the office, the Celtics were expected to show up when returning to host the Jazz.
They, however, did not.
Boston succumbed to its bad habits of getting schoolyard-bullied on the boards, quickly turning a first-quarter 14-2 head start into a reminder of just how ill-equipped the Celtics are in that department.
“That’s the tell of the tale,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said following Boston’s 105-103 defeat at TD Garden. “Our first half was great, and then I think in the third quarter, they got the best of us and played harder than us. So it was a combination of transition, offensive rebounds, and some of their dribble-drive stuff — not being able to defend without fouling. You have to be able to put a full game together. The first half was good, the third quarter cost us, and when it’s a close game like that, it’s anybody’s game.”
Utah corralled 65 rebounds while Boston finished with 43 — seven fewer than the Celtics’ season average of 50.7 during their three-game winning streak. Mazzulla’s frontcourt surrendered 15 offensive rebounds to the Jazz, leading to 13 second-chance points and a 54-40 deficit in interior scoring. Keeping up with Utah became increasingly difficult in the second half as Jazz guard Keyonte George caught fire, scoring a season-high 31 points, all while Boston’s offense struggled to find any rhythm when Jaylen Brown was resting on the bench.
If the reality hadn’t set in already, melting on a cool November night to the 3-4 Jazz only hammered home the state of Boston’s frontcourt — it’s far from where it needs to be.
Still, that won’t stop Mazzulla and the Celtics from striving toward that destination.
“We’re never going to be top-5, but we have to be better,” Mazzulla said. “And I think it’s a combination of — again, there’s ones that we have to get and then we have to be able to compensate in other areas to be better at that, whether it’s our shot-making, whether it’s our turnovers, whether it’s our offensive rebounds, whether it’s us not turning it over. We’re doing a good job on not turning it over, so we just have to fight to be better at that.”
Josh Minott and Neemias Queta returned to Mazzulla’s starting lineup, but the pair only managed to come down with 14 rebounds. Utah’s starting center Jusuf Nurkić recorded a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, including four offensive boards — matching Minott and Queta’s total on that end of the floor.
In the critical moments, Boston’s will to go the extra mile came into question. Utah scored 38 points in the third quarter after only scoring 36 in the first half, which was fueled by a scorching 72.2% shooting clip and a 13-4 rebounding edge over the Celtics. That disparity went beyond talent and instead came down to something much simpler: effort. Boston played a complacent final 24 minutes of basketball and faced the music in the end — and it wasn’t Gino Time.
“We just gotta figure out a way to play for 48 minutes,” Derrick White said. “It’s not simple, but that’s what we have to do.”
Nurkić little-bro’d Queta to grab the most crucial rebound of the night and finished the putback layup with 0.06 seconds left in regulation, giving the Jazz the game-winning basket.
Pointing the finger at Boston’s 21.6% shooting from three on 51 attempts is fair, but unlike their loss to the Rockets, the Jazz weren’t scorching from deep either. Utah shot just 29% on 31 attempts, yet made up for it in all the areas where Boston didn’t. Head coach Will Hardy’s squad fought for every possession, pounced on every Celtics miss, and kept their foot on the gas the entire game. Boston couldn’t say the same.
Queta’s eight rebounds were enough to make him Boston’s leader on the glass. The bench combined for just 10, accounted for by seven different reserves, encapsulating the issue perfectly.
Instead of using the Jazz as a stepping stone to launch their next winning streak with a clean 48-minute effort, the Celtics took a step back, falling to 3-5 with their third home loss in four games this season. That’s Boston’s worst eight-game start to a season since 2021-22.
“I thought defensively we could’ve been better, but we did enough,” Brown said. “They had 105 points. We gotta get the rebounds at the end of the game — those are crucial. In moments, it just felt like they were the harder-playing team. I guess it’s a part of our learning curve, but teams — especially a team coming off a back-to-back — shouldn’t be the harder-playing team than us. And I gotta lead the way on both ends of the ball, so I guess I gotta be better in that regard as well.”
