BOSTON — Kristaps Porzingis has been one of the bright spots of the Celtics season. Yet on Thursday night against the undermanned Lakers, the big man was on the receiving end of a message from coach Joe Mazzulla. Boston’s starters were in the midst of a dismal stretch at the beginning of the third quarter in the team’s 114-105 loss to the Lakers, which included Jaxson Hayes dominating multiple Celtics on the offensive glass, including Porzingis.
Mazzuola responded by pulling Porzingis along with two other starters for the remainder of the third quarter. Porzingis responded to the move after the game after the lackluster performance.
“We deserved it,” Porzingis said. “Of course we were pissed off. We’re pissed off at ourselves and I completely understood. I never want to come out of the game, but I completely understood we had to change something.
“We’re not playing good basketball. We’re going to do the same rotation and kind of keep the game the same? Those guys that came in and subbed us out—we were playing terrible—those guys came in, gave us some energy. We kind of got back like six, seven points. But we just could not break that bar. We had to do something differently. And we tried. We tried, but it didn’t go out way tonight.”
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The acknowledgment was shared by Jaylen Brown who also played far less (27 minute) than his usual load due to the benching. Brown and Porzingis ultimately returned to the game in the fourth quarter but neither found much of a rhythm all night amid some lethargic play.
“I haven’t been in that position too often, so it kind of is what it is,” Brown said of the benching. “We weren’t playing our best, I wasn’t playing my best, so nothing I can really say there. Every time I step on the court, I try to add to winning. Tonight, I tried to make sure I was being unselfish, hitting the guys in stride, sharing the ball. But I was a little lackadaisical, it wasn’t my best game. But I’ll put it behind me and get ready for the next one.”
The Celtics will have two off days to recharge and refuel the batteries before returning to the TD Garden on Sunday night for a matchup against another undermanned Memphis team.
“We have a couple days in between now (and the next game),” Porzingis said. “Of course it sucks. I know especially for fans and for us like it’s always a rivalry between us and the Lakers. We don’t want to lose to them ever again. But this is the NBA. This is the NBA. This is almost like a script. You’re going to lose this type of game and fans are going to think it’s the end of the world, and we lost to the Lakers without AD and LeBron, like, end of the season. Boom. Done. But it’s just a loss. It’s just a loss which we have to learn from. And which we will. We’re going to get a couple days rest which I think a lot of guys especially will be really useful for and we bounce back hungry and full energy.”
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