Celtics elect to stay positive after ugly finish to road trip

LOS ANGELES -- It was a night of history for the Celtics at Staples Center on Monday night, and none of it was of the good variety for the visitors. Boston ran into a Clippers squad that was firing on all cylinders on the offensive end and watched the game get away from them quarter by quarter in the 25-point defeat. The hosts scored the most points by a Celtic opponent in 21 years (140) and shot 60.9 percent from the field, the highest mark by a Boston opponent since 2014.

Needless to say, Boston’s defense was a step slow all night. They haven’t had the personnel to slow down speedy guards like Lou Williams (game-high 34 points) all year long and that showed all night long yet again. They couldn’t slow down pick-and-rolls as Montrezl Harrell (20 points) and Ivica Zubac (14 points) feasted in the paint regularly. Guys overhelped, Marcus Morris got burned repeatedly and bounces didn’t go their way as the C’s watched an offensive performance for the ages by a Clippers team that has been on a roll for weeks now.

“Obviously they played great,” Brad Stevens acknowledged. “It’s probably a combination of our defense abandoned us and they just played terrific. We couldn’t get stops. We talked about trying to guard different ways. We probably should have just said, ‘Let’s do better what we do.’ But we tried zone three times and Harrell got the rebound on all three shots. So, ultimately we have to be better than we were, but credit them. They played great. And we’ll move on.”

Moving on was a constant theme after this one. A previous version of this Celtics squad would have overreacted to this dud. However, this group appeared determined not to let one stinker ruin the vibes of an otherwise successful road trip.

Kyrie Irving was at the forefront of that mentality in the wake of the 140-115 defeat, choosing to look at the bigger picture rather than dwell on one of 82.

“We were successful on this road trip,” he explained. “We came here to go 4-0. Obviously, we didn’t have that, we went 3-1, so now we go back home and (hold) business. We’ve gotta keep it moving. Our level of play obviously has to be at a certain level to be successful. We know what we need to do. We need to get out of here. No disrespect to any LA natives, I love being out here, but yeah, we need to get out of here.”

“I think for the most part we played some good basketball,” Jaylen Brown added. “We came out tonight and got our ass kicked, but for the most part, we played pretty good basketball over a four-game span. We just gotta get better going forward and try to keep it up.”

It’s hard to disagree with that assessment from the All-Star and Brown. The Celtics have been a subpar team on the road all year long and they managed to beat two above .500 teams away from the Garden in back-to-back games for the first time all year (Warriors, Kings), before taking care of business against an undermanned Lakers squad. The Celtics could have played good defense on Monday night and they probably still would have lost by 10 the way the Clippers were shooting. Anyone in the organization would have taken a 3-1 trip before this team headed west last Sunday and nearly every player on the roster emphasized that after the defeat.

“Just the way that we played, stayed together through ups and downs,” Al Horford said of his trip takeaways. “Obviously tonight didn’t go how we wanted but I feel like we really played with purpose and we want to continue playing that same way for the rest of the -- now that we’re going back home.”

Irving has been one guy on the roster that has taken losses too hard all year long and said something he shouldn’t have in the aftermath of those defeats. His mindset has seemed to change for the better in the past week though after a long chat with Stevens. He approached this one with the right perspective. Acknowledge that the team has to clean up a lot, but also move forward without pointing fingers.

“I don't have time to just keep holding on emotions from game to game,” he explained. “I've just been through too much. It's just one game. We know what we have to do, but clearly giving up 140 points is not going to get you a W in the NBA. That's the level of standard we all have to hold ourselves to in order to be great, and it is what it is. We've got to take it as a hit on the chin and just fly back home six hours and get ready for the Kings on Thursday. They're fighting for a playoff spot, and we've got things we want to accomplish throughout the regular season as we finish on and we go from there.”

Nothing changed in the big view in terms of what the Celtics can accomplish over the rest of the season on Monday night. They still remain just 1.5 games back of the three seed and are set up to sustain more momentum back at Garden with three very winnable games upcoming (Sacramento, Atlanta, Denver). This is still a flawed group in many ways that will need to tighten things up on a variety of fronts if they want to make a deep run in the East, something that they got a serious reminder of on Monday night.

“It’s not like we’d solved a big puzzle after three games,” Stevens noted. “We’re just trying to get better, and so, we didn’t play well tonight. They outplayed us. Kudos to them, and now we’ll take what we need to and move on and learn from it.”

The panic phase for this group appears to be over, from the coaching staff on down through the veterans. Whether or not it results in renewed focus remains to be seen for this inconsistent group, but it’s a refreshing change to see this group focusing on the big picture in the wake of adversity after a year full of turmoil.

“We lost, but we can’t think about that,” Marcus Smart explained. “We have to move on from this, turn around and play a game on Thursday, and come out and play. We can’t be thinking about this one. Have to stay in the present.”

A chance for some momentum and kickstart another three-game winning streak comes on Thursday night.