Slow start dooms Celtics in 96-93 loss to Pistons

The Celtics celebrated New Year’s Eve in a Detroit hotel ballroom with a cutthroat version of Secret Santa known as White Elephant. Players could claim gifts opened by their teammates, and in one particularly rough instance Marcus Smart had to surrender a bottle of 12-year-old rye whisky. He settled for a karaoke set.

But initially there was no carryover. The Celtics opened against the Pistons Friday night with their competitive nature still back in that ballroom.

The Pistons started hot, led by 21 points in the second quarter, and put the onus on a flat Celtics team to climb out of their hole.

Though they took the lead late, the Celtics paid dearly for their early sins in last night’s 96-93 loss to the previously winless Pistons, wasting a 28-point performance by Jayson Tatum and another 25 from Jaylen Brown.

The Celtics, trailing 95-93, took possession with 25.3 seconds left following a Saddiq Bey free throw, and fired blanks. Tatum missed an open jumper from the right corner, and though Dniek Theis grabbed the rebound, Smart missed at the rim.

Mason Plumlee hit one of two free throws for a 96-93 lead, and the Celtics took possession with 5.6 seconds left.

Brown missed an open 3-point attempt, Tatum missed the tip-in, and Detroit had its first win.

After trailing at one particularly dour early stage by 21 points, the clamped down with their best defensive energy of the game in the third quarter, and thanks to a 15-point stretch from Tatum cut the Detroit lead to 79-73 by the start of the fourth.

Brown opened the fourth with a 3-pointer, came back after a Rob Williams block with a foul line jumper, and one possession later converted off the break for the Celtics’ first lead at 80-79.

Williams went down soon thereafter and left the game after banging knees with Derrick Rose, and the Celtics, at roughly the sane time, lost hold of the lead.

Poor shooting on both sides culminated in Tatum taking the lead back at 88-86 with a 3-pointer, and when Mason Plumlee scored for the tie, Brown drove for a 90-88 lead.

Tatum, hot again, then buried his third trey of the night for a 93-88 Celtics lead with 4:15 left. The Pistons cut the Celtics lead to 93-90, and Jerami Grant, fouled on a drive, hit two free throws with 1:45 left for a one-point game.

Tatum front-rimmed a jumper, and Rose drove the court for a 94-93 lead. The Celtics threw the ball away, Grant and Smart exchanged missed 3-pointers, and with 25.7 seconds left Bey missed the second of two free throws for a 95-93 Detroit lead.

 

 

 

 

 

At their sorriest, the Celtic trailed by 21 points in the first half. Stevens started rotating deep into his bench to find a spark, at one stage subbing in the seldom-used Carsen Edwards.

With Tatum and Brown back on the floor after a slow start by both players, the Celtics finally strung together a series of stops effective enough to cut the Detroit lead to 55-40. But Brown, coming off a career-high 42-point performance against Memphis, didn’t score until the second quarter and finished the half with eight points. Tatum was shooting 3-for-10 (0-for-3 from three) at the break, though both players heated up well enough in the last four minutes.

And Jerami Grant, Detroit’s big free agent prize, was scoring with impunity with 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting.

That increased defensive energy in the second quarter picked up again at the start of the third, with a pair of muscular drives by Brown and Smart’s third trey of the night helping to change momentum.

The Celtics cut the Pistons edge to seven points with six minutes left in the quarter, watched it drift again as high as 12, and made a move again when a corner jumper from Tatum cut the Pistons’ edge to 72-65, and cut it to 74-69 a minute later with an up-top three.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3rIgu1Q