BOSTON — The shorthanded Celtics suffered their worst loss of the season on Wednesday night, falling 124-103 to a surging Miami Heat squad in front of a packed TD Garden crowd. The hosts showed some fight initially in the defeat, trimming a 22-point Heat lead down to four points early in the fourth quarter. However, Miami responded with a counter punch, pushing the lead back to 15 points with a 9-1 run with five minutes remaining in the game.
Joe Mazzulla has been known for sticking with his starters deep in games to keep potential comebacks alive. However, the realities of the Celtics’ situation for the remainder of the regular season became apparent quickly as Mazzulla elected to pull the plug on his regulars with five minutes left after Miami’s run.
Boston was already playing without Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford due to rest nights in the eventual loss. With Jaylen Brown also limited by a knee injury that had sidelined him in four of the team’s last eight games, the team has been careful with his minutes of late.
Despite riding a nine-game winning streak heading into Wednesday night, it’s been apparent for weeks that Boston has nothing to play for in the standings. They are locked into the No. 2 seed and were clearly being outworked by a Heat squad all night that is still fighting for seeding the East.
With no motivation to lean on late, Mazzulla wisely protected his players and pulled the plug early, which is something Derrick White couldn’t object to.
“I mean, Joe probably got the best read about it out of all of us,” White said of the early benching. “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.”
The Celtics also fell to 0-5 on the season at TD Garden after long road trips, another potential factor in the lethargic performance.
“We was on the road for 10, 12 days,” Brown said. “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, four different time zones, 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.”
The truth is that Mazzulla saw all he needed to see out of this team on their 6-0 road trip and amid a stretch where Boston won 15 of 16 games overall. Mazzulla came put on a good front but there’s no need to put any extra miles on the tires right now, particularly on nights the team is worn down. Wednesday’s loss means nothing in the big picture even if Mazzulla wants to make you think otherwise.
“We’re all pissed,” Mazzulla said. “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. Like you said, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter or have much of an impact, but it still sucks, and we’re all miserable right now. So we’ll get back after it the next day.”
The Celtics will get a chance to rebound against another motivated team fighting for a playoff spot in the Suns on Friday night at TD Garden.
