1. Awful clutch execution
In a bad game for the Celtics, they had a chance to win the game down the stretch but some awful execution led to their downfall. At the 43 second mark of the 4th quarter, Derrick White hit a three to cut the Trail Blazers lead to 1 point. Donovan Clingan then made a layup off of a missed Deni Avdija three and made the And-1 free throw to bring the lead to 4 points for Portland.
Then out of the Celtics timeout, Derrick White threw an errant inbound pass that would’ve ended up as an easy Jaylen Brown layup, but ended up with the Trail Blazers and two free throws for Avdija.
Finally, even with the game basically out of reach, Payton Pritchard brought it down the court and threw an alley-oop pass to Neemias Queta that went completely over his head. This ended the game and was a pretty good microcosm to the disaster of a game this was for the Celtics.
2. Jaylen Brown makes history
Before I talk more negatively about the game, I wanted to highlight Jaylen Brown’s history making performance. Brown passed Bill Sharman for 12th place on the Celtics all time scoring list and tied Larry Bird for the longest consecutive 30 point streak in Celtics history at 9 straight games. Brown had 37 points on 14-23 FG and 2-5 3PM and did everything in his power to will Boston to a win.
Brown had 27 points at the half and had a late second quarter explosion that was some of the best basketball he’s played this season. Brown was frying Toumani Camara who is one of the best defenders in the NBA, and made this and-1 mid range shot where Camara took a beating.
Then on the next play, blew by Camara again for a scoop layup with three Trail Blazers around him.
Finally, as time was running down at the end of the half, Brown got the switch on to Kris Murray. Brown crossed over into a step back three at the buzzer and had had some things to say to the Portland crowd.
3. Out muscled on the boards by Clingan
Although the final rebounding numbers don’t look that bad, Boston was thoroughly out-rebounded in this game and it cost them the win. Portland finished winning the rebounding battle 47-40 and 15 of those came as offensive rebounds. The worst of these came at the end of the game when Donovan Clingan made the and-1 layup with 22.4 seconds to go to give the Trail Blazers a 4 point lead that they would never surrender.
Queta and Garza looked really bad when it came to stopping Clingan in this entire game. He finished with 18 points and 18 rebounds a great example of this dominance from Clingan came in the third quarter. Avdija looked like he was throwing either a lob or a missed layup but it got Luka Garza to focus on his shot. That led to Clingan grabbing the ball and flushing it down for a mean poster where he stared down Garza on the floor.
Coming into this game, the Portland Trail Blazers were the worst team in the league when it came to turning the ball over and the Boston Celtics were the best team at limiting turnovers. The Trail Blazers lived up to their end of the bargain with 21 turnovers but the Celtics were not able to control their turnover output as they had 20. These turnovers were really costly, especially towards the end of the game when Derrick White threw an errant inbound pass with 19.8 seconds left that essentially sealed the loss for Boston. When Boston has lost games this season it normally has been because they turn the ball over too much and this game was a great example of that.
5. Ice cold shooting from three
In the 10 Takeaways article I wrote after the Celtics win against the Pacers on Friday, I said that when the Celtics make their three point shots they tend to win a lot of games. Also coming into this game, Boston shot 39% from three in their last 10 games and all the signs pointed to another great shooting night. Sadly in this game, Boston did not hit their threes, shooting 13-44 (29%) from beyond the arc.
There were times in this game where the Celtics had a lot of wide open opportunities but couldn’t capitalize off of them and if they were able to hit even a couple more of them they probably win this game.This is the 5th time the Celtics have shot that bad from three and Boston’s record in those games are 0-5.
6. Hugo Gonzalez 2nd best player in this game
In a game where there weren’t a lot of great performances to talk about, Hugo Gonzalez really showed out. In 30 minutes Gonzalez finished with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals 5-10 shooting from the field. There was an interesting stat from Steve Bullpett on X that said: “Hugo Gonzalez, who leads all rookies in plus-minus, became the first Celtic first-year player to have at least three offensive rebounds, three assists and two steals in a game since Marcus Smart hit those marks four times during the 2014-15 season.”
Hugo is known for his hustle plays and he made a ton of them early on. In the second quarter, the Trail Blazers were not paying attention as they were bringing the ball up the court. Gonzalez was able to recognize that, steal the pass, and take it the other way for an easy dunk.
Gonzalez also showed he can come up in the clutch as well. In the fourth quarter with the Celtics down by three with 5 minutes left, Jaylen Brown brought the ball down the court and found Hugo on the wing for a wide open three that forced a Trail Blazers timeout and had Gonzalez hyped.
7. Anfernee Simons Return to Portland
In the offseason Anfernee Simons was traded to the Boston Celtics for Jrue Holiday after spending the first 7 years of his NBA career with the Portland Trail Blazers. In his first game back in Portland, the Trail Blazers put together a nice tribute video for him to commemorate his time there.
Simons looked happy on the bench while the video played in the arena and it was a nice moment. When he did play, it wasn’t the best performance he’s had this season, finishing with 13 points on 4-11 FG and 2-6 3PM. However, he did have 2 steals in this game and showed some potential on the defensive end.
The play that stood out to me the most came in the first quarter. Caleb Love of the Trail Blazers was driving towards the rim and Simons stripped it from him. This led to a fast break for the Celtics and an easy basket for Hugo Gonzalez.
For the second game in a row, Josh Minott has received a DNP. I’m not sure if there is an injury he is dealing with or something else but it feels like this would be a game that Minott should be playing in. When the Celtics played a small ball lineup with their bench unit it looked like it would have worked better with him in there to provide energy and defense on Deni Avdija. Luka Garza was getting dominated in this game and Jordan Walsh was in foul trouble, so I really would have liked to see Minott get a chance to try to defense Avdija and maybe he would have been able to make a difference. Joe Mazzulla has given players DNP’s randomly in the past so this shouldn’t be too surprising, but I think Minott should be in the rotation no matter what.
9. Jordan Walsh foul trouble
For the 3rd time in the last 5 games that Jordan Walsh has played, he has had to exit the game early in the first quarter with foul trouble. Walsh was doing a great job defending Deni Avdija to start this game but picked up 3 fouls in 4 minutes and finishing the game with only 10 minutes. This has been a pattern in these games where he is in foul trouble early and then Hugo Gonzalez comes in to replace him, leading to a decling in minutes and Hugo playing the rest of the game. Is it a matter of time where maybe Walsh isn’t in the starting lineup? Hugo Gonzalez has shown some incredible energy off of the bench when Walsh isn’t playing so I think it could be a matter of time where he gets a shot in the starting lineup. Jordan Walsh could then come in off of the bench and play a spark plug role similar to what he was doing when he first got playing time. Maybe I am making this a bigger deal than it is but Walsh is an elite defender and I would like to just see him on the court more.
The Celtics were rolling coming into this matchup against the Trail Blazers. They had won 4 games in a row and looked to have an easy schedule ahead on this west coast road trip. Portland was ravaged with injuries and only had 10 players on their active roster to compete in this game. Sadly this was the recipe for a classic trap game, and Boston fell for it. Just an awful showing all around where almost nobody from Boston played well and it really was the worst case scenario on all fronts. Hopefully they can bounce back from this loss to Portland when they take on Utah on Tuesday.
