PORTLAND, Ore. — On too many nights, the Celtics have an unfinished look, like a scattered jigsaw puzzle that isn’t going to be completed anytime soon.

Maybe that’s why Brad Stevens decided to point a finger at himself Sunday night.

“You find your flow by making the next right play and playing hard, that’s it,” the Celtics’ coach said. “When you’re in the game, you have a job to do on that possession, you do it. Then if you do it really well over and over again, you have a good team.

“Well-coached teams get there. We’re not a well-coached team right now, that’s pretty obvious.”

Like last Thursday in Phoenix, the Celtics responded to this kind of spotty offense with energy and explosive shot-making in the second half. Unlike last Thursday, a second-half turnaround wasn’t enough in their 100-94 loss to Portland.

Jayson Tatum’s season-high 27 points, including four third-quarter 3-pointers, and another 21 from Kyrie Irving were thus wasted. The Celtics flew home with a 1-4 record on this trip, and a hope that this was the punch in the mouth that wakes them up.

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“Experience. We needed this. We’re not as good as we think we are,” Irving said. “I said it at the beginning of the season. The excitement is done. It’s real basketball now, so it’s not just about the potential of the team or where we’ll be at the end of the season.

“It’s right now and taking care of what presently is in front of us. We have challenges. We have barriers to get over as a team and individually. I’m going to be the most patient out of everyone. I’m not going to get too frazzled, too high or too low or stuff like that. It’s a long season. I just understand that for us to be special we just have to get through some challenges.”

The Celtics’ problem certainly isn’t a matter of talent, according to Irving.

“It comes to getting punched in the mouth a few times, and then we come out and clearly we outmatch teams at dang near every position,” he said. “We have a lot of good players. And when I say outmatch, I mean in terms of the groups we have out there, we pretty much have a mismatch every time out there.”


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