One of the best compliments I can give this Celtics team is that losses like this are now annoying. They have set an expectation that this team should win certain games, and that they will execute down the stretch when certain opportunities present themselves.
They have that expectation of themselves. Jaylen Brown was clearly seething at the late mistakes and missed reads. There were no postgame pleasantries after the final horn. Brown just stomped his way back into the locker room, knowing a winnable game had gotten away.
“We've been in these situations in the past,” Derrick White told reporters after the game. “I don't know what it is, but it happened tonight, and we just got to learn from it and make sure it don’t happen again.”
It’s easy to look past the Celtics' deficiencies when they have stretches of everyone playing well and stringing wins together, but they still exist. Neemias Queta has been a huge part of Boston’s success, but he’s still prone to mistakes, like this one that led to a Brown turnover
You can hear Joe Mazzulla yell for Neemias Queta to help Brown right before this turnover (and amazing play by White). Too mechanical here and not enough recognition of what the defense is doing and how to help. pic.twitter.com/txAvROxFb3
— John Karalis 🇬🇷 (@John_Karalis) December 29, 2025
Queta just didn’t recognize the double team, and he cleared out instead of being a short-roll option for Brown. The result is like watching Drake Maye take a sack because his checkdown decided to run a route 20 yards downfield.
The Blazers ramped up their intensity, having watched Brown drop 14 points in less than six minutes of the second quarter. They weren’t going to watch him close out the game the same way.
“We were trapping Jaylen Brown the second half, making him get off the ball and making the other guys make plays,” Donovan Clingan said. “I feel like our aggressiveness and closeouts, not letting shooters get off clean shots, I feel like that was a big part of (the win).”
Brown and White were surprising culprits in Boston’s demise. Portland doubled off a White screen with 1:12 to go which led to another Brown turnover, and then a heated moment where he told White to get out of the screen faster.
