BOSTON — The Boston Celtics learned a lot Saturday night about the cost of errors in a 115-111 loss to the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

As the ball pressure mounted, with Klay Thompson playing a key role on Kyrie Irving down the fourth-quarter stretch, a normally air-tight Celtics offense started to leak.

Irving lost the ball three times in the fourth quarter, and the Celtics’ next-highest assist man, Al Horford, forked it over twice.

“Give them credit, but we also made some careless plays,” said Horford, whose 22-point, 13-rebound double-double lost some luster once the game turned messy, with the same sour ending applying to Irving’s 32-point, 10-assist night.

“I had a couple of turnovers there, miscommunication, things like that. I have to be more solid with the ball,” Horford said. “Against that type of team, you can’t make those types of mistakes or you’ll pay down the other end, and they did that. The way I look at it, there’s a lot we can learn as a group.”

Marcus Smart slipped with 8.6 seconds left and the Celtics trailing by two points while attempting to box out Draymond Green after Green missed his second straight free throw. Green, unimpeded, grabbed the long rebound, and Steph Curry, fouled two seconds later, put the game away from the line.

“I literally just slipped,” Smart said. “I went in, something we work on day-in, day-out, I do it on a daily basis. And just lost my footing.

“It was me and Kyrie back there. We talked about it, Kyrie was going to box out whoever it was, and I was going to get in and get the shooter and get the rebound. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

The rest came down to the Celtics missing a pair of great looks – back-to-back open 3-pointers from Marcus Morris and Smart on the two possessions preceding Green’s trip to the line – and Golden State’s legendary shotmaking.

In this case, Thompson’s pull-up 3-pointer with 2:12 left for a 111-108 lead was murderous. Though Smart came back 1:05 later to tie the game from downtown, he then fouled Thompson 21 seconds later.

Thompson, again showing why he’s one of the best two-way players in the NBA, scored seven of his 21 points in the fourth quarter.

And that’s how the Warriors typically win – in waves. Kevin Durant scored 14 of his game-high 33 in the first quarter, and Curry scored 17 of his 24 in the second, when he also made five of his six 3-pointers.

Per usual for Golden State, it was all accomplished with a high level of poise.

“I mean, they had poise, but they also got pretty lucky, too,” Irving said. “We had two pretty good looks that either way had gone down, you know, different game, but they were poised where Klay hit a big shot in transition, he gets a big stop on the defensive end, there’s 21 seconds left, you know, but (Durant) has that turnover where we get another chance. It just didn’t go our way and we had our chance on the defensive rebound, just, (but) Smarty slipped. Things didn’t go our way. (Stuff) happens in games and you just gotta move on.”

Until March 5, anyway, when the Celtics resume this regular-season duel out in Oakland, California.

“Two great teams going at it. We bring the best out of each other, obviously,” Curry said. “In this building, it’s tough. They’re loud and engaged, and they can go on runs. Tonight we knew that was going to happen, but we were able to withstand them and go right back at them, and get a bunch of shots in the fourth quarter to keep a little bit of distance.

“Klay hit a big shot, (Durant) forced the issue and got to the foul line a couple times, and besides those two careless turnovers giving them another shot, we were pretty much in control. I didn’t feel like we were in jeopardy even with as close as the game was. I felt like we had good momentum.”

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