BOSTON — The Celtics have a history of playoff struggles at TD Garden but Jaylen Brown was in no mood to talk about the past after an ugly 118-94 loss to the Cavs on Tuesday night.
“I’m only concerned with this year,” Brown said. “Last year is last year.”
Despite that mentality, it was alarming to watch the Celtics play an uninspired performance on defense in such a high stakes contest. Boston was outscored by 24 points in the second half as Donovan Mitchell led six different Cavs to finish in double figures in a runaway road win that evened the series at 1-1.
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Brown has been the vocal leader of this Celtics team all year and he did not hold back about the disappointment in his team’s play.
“I think it was just a bad game,” Brown said. “Obviously we didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight, but defensively it was an unacceptable performance, and I think that’s where we look at that and I’m the most upset. Defensively we gave up 118 points, and on top of that we lost the rebound battle. So we didn’t help ourselves tonight.”
Brown struggled to put his finger on what caused the defensive letdown after a dominant Game 1 win but a lackluster shooting outing may have bled into Boston’s effort.
“We’re gonna watch it,” Brown said. “I think just overall maybe we missed some shots and we let that translate. It’s the playoffs, that can’t happen. I don’t care if you’re missing shots, you’ve got to guard the guy on the other end. That allows you to miss more shots if you’re playing defense. But you can’t miss shots and then allow them to make shots at the other end. That was unacceptable.”
Brown was the only Celtic player who spoke postgame who sounded concerned at all after the loss. On the one hand, that’s no surprise given the level of competition and the fact Boston’s track record has shown them fully capable of bouncing back from losses all year long. An ugly loss and a 1-1 series is no reason to panic.
With that said, the Celtics would be wise to heed Brown’s words after this loss. This was not a historic performance by the Cavs shooting wise like we saw with the Heat. Instead, Boston’s offensive warts without Kristaps Porzingis were exposed and the Cavs stars outplayed Boston’s talent across the board. Cleveland has the personnel to give Boston problem if they play to their potential and the Celtics need to be ready for that fight in Game 3.
“You learn from it,” Brown said. “Take it on the chin, you learn from it, and you come out and put your best foot forward for the next game. Obviously, this was an unacceptable performance. We need to be ready to respond.”
