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After the Celtics took a slim 67-66 lead with just under two minutes left in the third quarter against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday night, the wheels fell off.
The Nuggets ended the third on a 11-0 run, which bled into the fourth and helped them run away with a 103-84 win to break Boston’s four-game win streak.
The Celtics struggled to find the bottom of the net, shooting 35% from the field and 28% from the 3-point line, and combined with 14 turnovers, the Nuggets were able to get out in space with 14 points off said turnovers along with 14 off fast breaks.
“I think that’s how their best offense was, in transition, so we’ve got to do a better job offensively. It’d help if we made a couple shots,” Derrick White told reporters after the game.
Boston has committed more than their league-best 12 turnovers per game in both matchups with the Nuggets, losing the ball 14 times in both contests. Joe Mazzulla said on a given night, 10-15 possessions can be looked at as chances for better execution. Against Denver, it felt closer to 30.
“You have to give them credit, they were physical at the point of attack,” Mazzulla said.
Mazzulla emphasized misread rim-reads, live-ball turnovers and, simply, misses on open looks for creating that transition advantage for Denver. During their third quarter run, missed layups from Jaylen Brown and Nikola Vucevic sparked fast break opportunities. On Brown’s miss, only Vooch was left back to defend as Denver looked like a team practicing a three man weave.
When Vucevic couldn’t convert on a drive past Nikola Jokic, Denver’s pace created a two-on-one for Spencer Jones to take advantage of. And to close out the quarter, an errant Brown pass into the backcourt allowed KJ Simpson a free swing at an uncontested dunk.
“We had a tough time tonight converting,” Brown said. “I thought we had a lot of great looks, open catch-and-shoots, and we just didn’t convert.”
Boston made just five of their 19 3-point attempts in the second half, including four wide-open misses created by the team’s ball movement.
Ending their four-game west coast trip on a back-to-back, the Celtics return home for their next two games against Brooklyn and Philadelphia, where coach Mazzulla can get a sense of the team’s response from their first true off night since the All-Star Break.
“We’ll see how we approach our preparation for our next game, and that will dictate how well we’ve handled today,” Mazzulla said.
Mazzulla has remained even-keeled throughout the team’s recent highs of the road trip, and that remained constant even in a low point. How they respond against Brooklyn on Friday will tell the story of this group’s response to this 19-point loss.
“The story’s not done,” he said after their Lakers win on Sunday. “We are only a product of what we do tomorrow, what we do the next day, and that’s just the story.”
“And if we would have lost this game by 1, tomorrow’s film session has to be as detailed and as disciplined as it is going to be with the result that we had. And so that’s the story. It’s not done yet, and we haven’t done anything.”