Celtics players, from left, Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday, watch from the bench during the second half of a 115-96 loss to the Clippers on Saturday in Boston. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
BOSTON — The Boston Celtics suffered one of their ugliest losses of the year Saturday night, taking it on the chin in a 115-96 defeat against the Los Angeles Clippers. No Boston starter played in the fourth quarter as the Clippers built a 31-point lead after three, putting on a clinic against a Boston team that was overmatched.
While it was only Boston’s second loss of the year at TD Garden, the beatdown left a mark with Jrue Holiday.
“A good old-fashioned (butt) whooping,” Holiday said. “Definitely humbling, I think, to be able to kind of come home and get your butt kicked. But we know it’s a long season. We know we can learn from this and just kind of hold it in our back pocket. It’ll always be in the back of our head when we have a good game the game before.”
Holiday was one of several Celtics starters who struggled offensively, scoring seven points on 2-of-11 shooting in 27 minutes before sitting out the entire fourth quarter. Boston’s starting five shot a collective 13 of 55 from the field, digging a hole the team had no hope of climbing out of in the second half with their offensive output. Those misses may have led to defensive breakdowns, according to Holiday.
“I think after some of those shots, I don’t think it’s about effort,” Holiday said. “I think we went out there and tried to rebound, get offensive rebounds. But I think they got a lot of transition points, a lot of leak-out where maybe we just weren’t concentrating on getting back defensively. They played well. Hats off to them.”
The loss, coming on the heels of Boston’s most impressive offensive game of the year in Miami, provided some valuable perspective for Coach Joe Mazzulla as Boston tries to maintain consistency amid a seven-game homestand.
“You’re never as good as you think you are, you’re never as bad as you think you are,” Mazzulla said. “And I think it’s important. We always talk about adversity, and adversity is always looked at as something negative happens to you. But to me, one of the hardest things to do is win consistently, all the time, and handle success. And that’s just as hard as handling losing, is being able to handle success. So I think regardless, you just focus on the character of your team, and our guys will bounce back.”
The Celtics will get their next chance to bounce back on Monday night when they host Zion Williamson and the Pelicans.
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