The Celtics knew what was coming, but it sure didn’t seem like it.
“They controlled the physicality in the first half … We knew they were going to do it,” Payton Pritchard said after the Celtics loss to Golden State. “We‘ve just gotta be better to start it … we played decent defense but offensively we’ve gotta be a little bit better.”
That's putting it mildly.
“We did a good job of getting into them, making them a little uncomfortable,” Steve Kerr said.
The Warriors doubled up the Celtics in the second quarter 32-16, holding Boston to its worst scoring quarter of the season so far. Boston had no offensive rebounds and no fast breaks. They did have five turnovers, giving the Warriors eight points.
“That first half, they caused a lot of turnovers,” Derrick White said “Kind of just had us outside our scoring area and we were just kind of like, I don't know, surprised isn't the right word but their pressure and they were blitzing us. So in the second half, we made the right reads. Yeah, it was a bad offensive first half, for sure."
The Golden State Warriors walked into TD Garden as the second-best defense in the league and they showed why they're having so much early-season success. They are not the Warriors of recent seasons, and they came to Boston trying to prove that.
“I know they're missing (Jaylen Brown) and (Kristaps) Porzingis, but felt like it was a good test,” Steph Curry said. “They've been playing well, despite those guys, they have a certain style that we haven't seen and Tatum's been playing awesome, D-White's playing awesome. So defensively to try to match up with them was great. And an environment that's tough to win in no matter who's playing. Obviously we know what happened last year. So it was a great test, knowing we haven't done a a damn thing. But it felt good.”
Buddy Hield called it a statement game, something you will rarely, if ever, hear the Celtics admit. The Celtics have been challenged to be the Ivan Drago of the NBA; cold and emotionless machines aimed at delivering the most decisive win possible. Jayson Tatum didn’t care, at least publicly, about how he was facing or what happened with Steve Kerr over the summer.
“Just another Wednesday, another game, another opportunity to come in and try to be the best player I can be and another day to just try to get a win,” Tatum said.
The Celtics weren’t at their best and they didn’t have to be to have a chance against the now 7-1 Warriors. Even without Brown and Porzingis, and with Jrue Holiday and Al Horford at noticeably less than their best, and with Tatum needing a full half of basketball to join the party, the Celtics were within two points down the stretch.
The Warriors were treating the game like it was the playoffs. And while there's no doubt the Celtics wanted to win this game, there's also no doubt that Boston didn’t come into this one with the same amount of juice.
“(We lost) some of those 50-50 balls in critical moments,” Tatum said. “Me not inching out on a three from Buddy Hield, the air ball that they got the rebound and tip-in. I blocked Steph's shot, they got the loose ball and made their way up. Just in those moments, we know we've got to be better, and we have in the past. We just didn't make enough plays on that end at the end of the game."
A year ago, a loss like this would have felt like armageddon. The Warriors winning in Boston has always felt like a gut punch in the Curry era, but now that the Celtics are the champs and the Warriors are the chasers, it feels like an easier pill to swallow.
Did the Warriors want it more? Yeah, but of course they did because things have been rough for them and this was a big test on national television.
Did the Celtics not seem to match their energy for a while? Yeah, but they probably shouldn’t be going too overboard at this point of the season.
And yeah, the Celtics lost at home in just their third game at TD Garden where last year it didn’t happen until their third month, but now everyone trusts this team to be where it needs to be when it matters most. Sure, everyone wanted to win, but having a good chance with two starters out and playing their worst half of the season just shows how good they really are.
They're 7-2, which is a winning percentage of just under 78%, which is what it was at the end of last season. Games like this are easier to deal with because we know how that story ended.
“It was a good game between two really good teams,” Tatum said. “Brad Stevens used to say every game counts as one. You want to win every game you play. We’re no different. If we would have won tonight, we still gotta play on Friday. We lost tonight, we still gotta play on Friday. That’s the beauty of the NBA. We play 82 games, so you can’t get too high or too low in the moment because there's always another game coming up."
