The Boston Celtics suffered a disappointing 130-111 loss to the Washington Wizards. The defeat keeps Boston 2.5 games away from the number-one seed in the Eastern Conference.
Joe Mazzulla addressed what went wrong in the Celtics’ performance.
“Transition defense waned,” said Mazzulla. “I think we gave around 20 points in transition in the first half… You let a team score early and often like that, especially in the first half, you give them a chance to get going and puts you in a tough spot and we weren’t able to recover.”
With nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, Mazzulla made the unusual decision of benching Boston’s starting line-up for the remainder of the game. They were replaced by the unit of Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Grant Williams, Mike Muscala, and Luke Kornet.
When asked about the removal of key players, such as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Mazzulla stated that he was “just looking for a different look at that time”. Though the secondary unit was able to cut the lead to 12 points, the momentum wasn’t sustained.
Mazzulla wasn't concerned with Boston’s three-game winning streak being snapped.
"We’ve been playing really good basketball for a stretch of time.” said Mazzulla. “Tonight was just an off night. Very rarely has that happened to us, so we just have to move on and control the things that we can."
The Celtics will face off against the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night. Milwaukee holds the best record in the league, though Boston can still overtake the position before the regular season ends.
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