Boston Celtics fans were expecting a lopsided win in their favor after hearing that LeBron James and Anthony Davis would be unavailable for the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night, but the reality was the exact opposite. During a season in which the Celtics have been almost unbeatable at home, the short-handed Lakers led by an impressive showing from Austin Reaves got the best of Boston, 114-105.
Standing at 2-2 in their current homestand, the Celtics have seemed like a shell of their former selves as of late, barely scraping by against the Indiana Pacers and New Orleans Pelicans and losing to the Los Angeles Clippers. Following Thursday night's loss, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla spoke about the recent run of games that haven't gone their way.
"I think we have to look at two sides to the coin," Mazzulla said when asked how the Lakers missing James and Davis affected the Celtics. "It positively impacted them and negatively impacted us. It was a combination of both for sure. We didn't play as hard as they did -- they played inspired. There was 70 minutes and 35 shots available for multiple guys, and guys on the Lakers' team took advantage of it. We just didn't play as hard as they did."
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It was a night to remember for Reaves, who scored 32 points on 10-18 shooting and went 7-10 from deep. All of Los Angeles' starters were in double digits as well as their sixth man, Rui Hachimura. The Celtics, on the other hand, struggled. Led by Jayson Tatum's 23 points on a lackluster 8-of-21 shooting, only two other Celtics found their way into double-digit scoring -- Kristaps Porzingis (17) and Sam Hauser (17). Jaylen Brown, who earlier learned he would be an All-Star -- scored just eight points on 4-of-12 from the field, 0-for-3 from deep.
"Stretches of bad basketball happen," Mazzulla added of the team's recent struggles. "You work your butt off every day to minimize those, but stretches of bad basketball happen. We can't sit here and act like we're too entitled for it to happen to us -- it happens. It's a matter of how we respond to it and can we work through it. It's constant daily choices, daily habits that you have to commit to every single day. To think that we're not going to go difficult times during an 82-game NBA season is not the right way to look at it."
Mazzulla has previously stated that he doesn't view losses as the end of the world. Instead, he prefers to learn from them to prevent the mistakes that caused the loss from happening again. While some may be surprised to hear that an NBA coach doesn't hate losing, it's all part of a bigger picture for Mazzulla and the Celtics -- of course they don't want to lose, but there are always lessons to be learned from failures.
"Am I pissed about losing? Yes," Mazzulla said. "But am I ecstatic about the opportunity to learn and grow as a team? I'm even happier about that."
The Celtics will have a chance to use what they learned from this loss when they take on the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET in what would have been Marcus Smart's homecoming game -- he remains sidelined with an ankle injury but is expected to travel with the team to Boston.
