Jaylen Brown missed a pair of late free throws and what would’ve been a game-winning shot against Tobias Harris in a loss to the Pistons to conclude a 2-2 road trip on Tuesday. Detroit beat Boston in 3-of-4 games this season decided by 14 points combined, while the Celtics’ lone win came by three following a missed game-tying free throw by Cade Cunningham.
The matchups featured strong play from Brown and Cunningham, both named All Stars on Monday, a decisive bench advantage for the Pistons and an ability by the Celtics to stay in games with the east’s top seed but not close them. Their competitiveness physically and on the boards kept them close similarly to the last Celtics-Pistons game, where Brown’s seven free throw misses plays a crucial role in Boston’s loss. Joe Mazzulla said the Celtics matched the Pistons’ physicality as he did after that night. Yet Detroit, again, flexed its status as the conference’s power.
- Brown scored 13 of the Celtics’ 29 points in the first quarter while the Pistons held Derrick White scoreless to begin his 1-for-11 night. Brown’s efficiency waned after his 5-for-11 start, so even as the Celtics’ offensive rebounding and an early three-point shooting edge formed, they turned the ball over and lost the possession battle for the rest of the night. Detroit won 50-50 balls, limited Boston’s offensive boards after halftime and closed 7-of-17 from three. Jaden Ivey, Duncan Robinson and Harris beat Boston’s aggressive rotations on Cunningham, which didn’t force any turnovers on him. He finished with 14 assists.
- Sam Hauser’s success following the 10 threes he made over the Hawks continued through a 6-for-9 showing against Detroit that saw his screening, shooting and some activity inside the arc opening up the offense. The Pistons, however, put him in foul trouble and he sat from the nine minute mark of the third quarter until seven minutes remained in the fourth. Luka Garza also struggled with fouling, disrupting Boston’s rotation and calling for more Baylor Scheierman minutes and even a Xavier Tillman Sr. appearance. All of the Celtics’ starters won their minutes by 7-12 points after trailing by eight at halftime.
- The intensity, pace and shot-making for stretches of Monday’s game resembled a playoff series like the previous matchups between the teams. Adding to Mazzulla’s recent sentiment of clutch time becoming a crap-shoot, Boston actually won those minutes by 1.3 points per possession, but allowed 127.3 points per 100 as their rebounding and rotations faltered late in the losses. They won the closing minutes, 10-8, and by 25 points per 100, with three missed free throws becoming the difference.
- Small ball became a factor in the loss as well, with the Pistons pulling their centers off the floor for a stretch as they had in prior games. The Celtics went to Scheierman, Hauser, Brown, White and Pritchard in those situations., which finished -83.3 per 100 in three minutes. A small but important segment of the game. Tillman’s group finished -2, also consequential in a one-point loss. The Pistons tested the Celtics’ depth.
- Despite the thin margins, the Pistons’ speed, tenacity and knowledge of the Celtics’ attack on both ends should’t go unnoticed. They routinely turned their turnovers into points, winning 20-5 on the fast break. Detroit took advantage of Boston’s aggressiveness on the offensive glass with those leak-outs and limited the Celtics outside of Brown with their switching. It was one of the stronger execution games against Boston this year, however much the Celtics will come away feeling like they keyed in on the right areas to win. There’s hope for a better result with this matchup in the playoffs, as Pritchard projected while comparing it to the Knicks’ upset of the Celtics last season, Detroit’s personnel as it stands will make doing so difficult.