SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Kerr consoled Celtics fans before Boston began its road trip trying to get its season back on track. Only that’s not how the Celtics saw it — and Kerr agreed.
“We always say at the beginning of the season, we’re climbing Everest,” Kerr said. “When you start training camp, you’re at base camp and the NBA season is such a long haul. If you go to the Finals, that’s over 100 games. So if you go to the Finals and come back the next year, you’re right back at base camp and that’s intimidating and especially for the Celtics, they’ve been at it for 7-8 years playing deep into the postseason. It’s not like this was a brand new team last year winning it all. They’ve had to fight through a lot of difficult seasons, so perfectly natural for them to be having a little bit of an emotional hangover and maybe not be at their best game after game. I’ve seen that a million times in this league.”
Joe Mazzulla stressed not dwelling on those down nights following another one on Saturday against Atlanta. They didn’t have time to do that, he said, then caught himself and acknowledged a six-hour flat stood in front of them. Asked if they addressed their struggles on it before Monday’s game at Golden State, he said no.
The Celtics rolled through the Warriors, 125-85, to score one of their largest wins of the season anyway. Along with putting the concerns around the team aside for an afternoon, Boston found greater ball movement than they had in weeks, found greater defensive energy and shot 41.7% from three before sitting the starters for most of the fourth quarter. Steph Curry couldn’t escape mismatches. The Warriors, down Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga and others, couldn’t hit ant shots — finishing 34.8% from the field.
Mazzulla staggered Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum’s minutes for a second consecutive night, building on a positive from the Hawks game that he argued included more than many thought. Especially on the defensive side. Brown and Tatum combined for 17-for-34 shooting two days after both struggled immensely. Tatum mentioned their ability to look forward to another game two days after a meltdown as helpful to moving past such bad losses.
“Every season, regardless of the past result, brings about challenges, opportunities, ups and downs regardless of the past,” Mazzulla said about weighing problems with the big picture. So at the end of the day it’s more about making sure we’re sticking to the process of trying to play our best basketball as best as we can. Holding each other accountable to that, and just taking whatever the regular season presents to us as an opportunity to learn and grow. So I think that’s the mindset we’re in, and that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”
Kerr’s Warriors didn’t hit as many bumps. The 2016 Warriors set the NBA wins record after claiming the 2015 championship, then went back-to-back in 2017-18 with 67 and 58-win seasons. Having one of the greatest lineups ever helped, they went 57-25 trying to three-peat in 2019 before injuries tore them apart in the playoffs, but Kerr managed those seasons by balancing one-offs and fatigue against bad habits. He remembered needing 5-6 resets per year during those seasons with a good practice, going back to basics and challenging the room.
For Boston, in the big picture, having 30-13 record, top-10 offensive and defensive ratings helps ease concerns about their issues being systemic or long-term threats to their contention ability. The bigger problems could be health, the league catching up and the roster not ultimately standing far enough apart from the field the way Golden State’s did. Though games like Sunday’s show them closer to that level, with six double-figure scorers, 53.3% shooting and the ability to hit droves of threes between their starting and bench lineups.
“It’s a marathon of a season,” Steph Curry said. “You do have a championship kind of aura about you, and you can kind of carry that, but you’re getting everybody’s best shot every night. Teams are spent all summer trying to figure out how to beat you, because you’re the one that was holding up the trophy. And now you’re kind of held to a championship standard knowing that you’ve accomplished it. So there are gonna be lulls throughout the season. It kind of happens. But you try to get to the playoffs with a good identity, good momentum, good confidence, good health, and then you just roll the dice trying to run it back. I don’t know what people expected — they’re 30-13. They’re doing alright.”
That process continued for the Celtics after Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford rested Saturday’s loss in a back-to-back, and the schedule will continue to limit their time together as another awaits Wednesday and Thursday. The trip, generally, will provide Boston more time to get away from the pressure at home inside TD Garden, pastimes like throwing the football around and pickle ball, which the team has used at times this year to keep things light. They’ve repeated all season that they fell like they’re getting their opponent’s best shot every night.
For them, they know how to win, the group did it last year and that continuity lowers the concern that they somehow lost something over a summer. The Celtics’ recent play, though, at least reinforced the notion that you can’t skip steps, avoid habits or take the process of forming a new identity or roles lightly. They’re still exploring the starting five, figuring out who can consistently contribute at the back end of the rotation and trying to get multiple players back to their offensive outputs from a year ago. Something Brown said he’s trying to take on.
“What I would expect is come playoff time that they’ll be ready to roll,” Kerr said. “They got guys in their primes, well oiled-machine, well-coached. They know who they are. So I wouldn’t be worried about the Celtics if I were one of their fans. This is normal.”
