Celtics thoughts: Jaylen Brown has a plan, Luke Kornet bummed about fouls and more

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BOSTON — The Celtics’ long winning streak ended Wednesday night without any starters on the court. Joe Mazzulla pulled the last of his key players during a timeout with 5:02 left in a 124-103 loss to the Heat.

Here are nine thoughts from the first Boston loss since March 12 — one for each of the games in the winning streak Miami snapped.

1. For Mazzulla, the decision to pull the starters came earlier than usual.

“Joe probably got the best read about it out of all of us,” said Derrick White. “If you ask me, the players, we are always gonna say we want to stay in. He felt like it was too late, or whatever he thought, and I don’t disagree with him. Just kind of move on to the next game, and just keep building.”

2. Returning to TD Garden after a long road trip, Mazzulla must have sensed his team didn’t have enough energy to pull off a comeback. Such situations have challenged Boston all season. The Celtics have a chance to tie the 2015-16 Warriors for the best road record of all time, but they have regularly followed long road trips by dropping the first game back at home.

“It’s kind of hard to say. Who really knows?” said Luke Kornet. “I feel like there’s part of being on the road that’s a little bit of, like, a stressed environment of being on the road. And then you get home and, honestly, just happy to get back to the family and stuff like that. But frankly, that’s not really an excuse for nights like tonight. We need to do a better job of figuring that out and winning those games.”

2. After going 3-1 on their first long road trip of the season, the Celtics fell to Golden State 118-112 during their first game back in Boston. Since then, each Celtics road trip of four games or longer has given way to a similar belly flop at home. On Jan. 10, the Kings walloped Boston 114-97. On Jan. 27, the Celtics lost a 114-112 heartbreaker to Houston.

On Wednesday, after completing the first 6-0 road trip in franchise history, Boston returned to TD Garden and surrendered its worst defensive performance since the play-by-play era began in the 1996-97 season. The Heat scored 144.2 points per 100 possessions in the 12th-most efficient offensive game any team has produced this season.

“We was on the road for 10, 12 days,” said Jaylen Brown. “Not an excuse or anything, but those first games back, that’s always a tough one just from a calibration standpoint. We’ve been in three different time zones. You’ve been away from home. You just get home and kind of get settled, and then you have to play a basketball game. So sometimes it’s just like — it be like that sometimes. It’s not an excuse. Of course, we don’t make excuses, but first game back off a long road trip is always tough. I thought we had a lot of good looks tonight. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, and that put us in some spots, and we turned it over a little too much.”

3. The Celtics entered Wednesday night ranked first in avoiding opponent free throws. They sent the Heat to the line 27 times. With big men Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis out in addition to Jrue Holiday, Kornet’s three first-half fouls hurt the most. Due partly to the big man’s foul trouble, Mazzulla used Jayson Tatum at center late in the first half, then went back to the tactic to start the third quarter.

“Just playing with a little bit of speed,” Mazzulla said. “I thought we ended the first half well with that, and Luke had three fouls, so wanted to preserve some of that, especially going up and then to start the quarter, so just continuing to find different ways to impact the game.”

That small lineup — which also featured Torrey Craig, Sam Hauser, Brown and White — gave up 14 points over the first 2:47 of the second half on a stream of dunks and layups. After one of the defensive breakdowns allowed Kel’el Ware to walk into an easy dunk, Hauser threw his arms up, clearly frustrated at the lack of execution by his team.

4. Mazzulla sent Kornet to check into the game immediately after that play. Kornet finished with 14 points and six rebounds over 21 minutes that highlighted his value to the Celtics. Especially with the frontcourt shorthanded, his presence changed the game. The Celtics outscored Miami by three points over Kornet’s playing time, and were bludgeoned by 24 points in the 27 minutes he sat.

“I think he’s really great at just screening vs. different coverages,” said Mazzulla. “So he’s seeing different matchups this year. They started the game out in one coverage, moved to a different one, but he just does a great job creating advantages. Just kind of goes into who he is, a selfless player, looking to get guys open. But he can do that and read it in real time, what the coverage is, and set the best screen to kind of get guys free and create indecision. So he takes a lot of pride in that.”

5. Though he made a difference while on the court, Kornet picked up his third foul with 5:11 left in the second quarter and subbed out for the rest of the first half less than a minute later. He sounded bummed out about the types of fouls he picked up.

“They were all kind of bad fouls, too, especially the third one,” Kornet said. “I just kind of got my hand caught in there. I didn’t really try to make a play. So, yeah, that was definitely something to try to avoid, and I think just a little lack of discipline on my part.”

6. Seven minutes into the second quarter, White tried to shake the Celtics awake. After getting stripped by Kyle Anderson, White raced back to tip the dribble away from Anderson. With nothing but hustle, White forced Anderson to give up plans of attempting a layup. And when Anderson shoveled a pass behind him to Bam Adebayo, White quickly made up several feet of ground to steal the ball from the big man. In transition, White then kick-started a sequence of beautiful passing that he also ended by finding Payton Pritchard for a corner 3-pointer.

This sequence >>> pic.twitter.com/4uNq68xH4T

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 3, 2025

White’s energy saved the possession.

7. It couldn’t light up the Celtics. After falling behind by 22 points early in the third quarter, they used a 25-6 run to cut the deficit to a single possession, but the charge stopped there. Miami pushed the lead back to double-digits by the end of the third quarter and pulled away in the fourth.

“We’re all pissed,” said Mazzulla. “I mean, we all hate losing. And that was my message. It was a good reminder that losing still sucks. So I love the fact that the staff are all miserable. Guys are pissed. Not happy about it, but we’ve got to come back and do it again the next day. I think it’s great. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter or have much of an impact (in the standings), but it still sucks, and we’re all miserable right now. So we’ll get back after it the next day.”

8. Despite his frustration with the loss, Mazzulla liked what he saw from Brown, who has been dealing with a right knee issue. The All-Star produced 24 points, nine rebounds and four assists over 29 minutes.

“I thought he was good,” Mazzulla said. “I think getting his feet under him, I liked the way he got to his spots. I like the way he competed defensively. To me, he just continues to look better and better each night, much more comfortable out there. So that was a positive for us and good to see. He’s got to continue to get that, so I like what he did tonight.”

9. Brown said he was still playing through pain. The injury is something he expects to continue to manage over the rest of the regular season. It has limited him enough that he said he needed to “come to grips that every night I’m not going to feel like my normal self.”

Even so, Brown considered Wednesday’s outing “a good step forward” for him. He said he and the medical staff have a plan to ramp him up physically in time for the playoffs.

“We’ve got a good plan in place,” Brown said. “So come playoffs, my goal is to be feeling my best.”

(Photo: Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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