C’s fall at home to Pistons
Detroit hot from floor all night long
While the Bucks were resting at home awaiting Thursday night’s big duel with the Celtics, the latter were back in Boston looking unworthy of even getting on the plane to Milwaukee.
PISTONS CELTICS 116 103
The Celts warmed up for the conference-leading Bucks and reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo by having the likes of Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk and rookie Sekou Doumbouya eat their lunch with career-highs of 21 and 24 points, respectively. Markieff Morris had 23 and Derrick Rose 22 as the lottery-leaning Pistons throttled the Celts, 116-103, Wednesday night at the Garden.
Gordon Hayward had 25 points and Jaylen Brown added 24, but the C’s saw
Detroit burn them with 60.3% shooting. By the end, the Celts were frustrated with the officiating (Marcus Smart got his second technical and automatic ejection with 2:23 left), but such displeasure was ill-directed in the grand scheme of this loss.
“I think the ones that we’ll go back and we’ll say, OK, the baskets you can never give away are the cuts, the layups, and the transition when they just get behind you and drive to the rim,” said Brad Stevens. “You always start there. I’m guessing they had 20 points on those, maybe more? Right there you’re probably getting beat in most NBA games, if you give up that easy a plays.”
The coach went on to laud Rose and note that Andre Drummond (13 points, 13 rebounds) was a problem inside. Then he went back to talking about surrendering the easy buckets and allowing the Pistons’ perimeter people to get too comfortable.
Certainly this effort won’t scare the 36-6 Bucks who’ve won nine of their last 10.
“I think we’re going to be motivated to play (Thursday),” said Brown, who afterward was wearing a compression wrap on his right hand to protect a sprained right thumb running into Morris. (He’ll have it checked in the morning, but doesn’t think it’s bad.) “I think that we didn’t come with the right energy, and teams are looking to beat us, man. We’ve been saying that all year. And we didn’t come out with the type of aggressiveness for the game that we needed, and we lost. And that was all-around. Everybody got to be better.”
The Celts appeared to have steered out of the skid in the third quarter when Hayward drove the left baseline and dunked, erasing an earlier nine-point shortfall and putting them up by four. But 15 of the game’s next 17 points belonged to the Pistons, with a Hayward drive accounting for the only movement on the home side of the scoreboard in a 4:28 span.
Detroit took a 91-83 lead into the final period, and when the Celtics began rushing and getting desperate, things got out of hand. The Pistons began the quarter with a 17-5 run to a 21point lead.
The Pistons arrived with three straight losses —all at home — and a 14-17 record. And they were minus injured starters Blake Griffin, Reggie Jackson and Luke Kennard.
The Celtics, at 27-11, had the second best record in the Eastern Conference and third best in the league. And while Jayson Tatum was out with a sore knee, others were more than capable of picking up the slack.
It was, on paper, a mismatch. But on the court, things were far different than conventional wisdom might want to indicate.
The Pistons were able to hit eight of their first 10 shots, and 11-year veteran Rose and Doumbouya each made four of five shots in the period. Detroit led by as many as nine before Hayward scored twice to complete a 10-point frame and Enes Kanter hit inside to cut the Celts’ deficit to 27-24 after one.
The visitors shot 61.1% from the floor in the quarter, and you had to figure the C’s would dig in harder in the new period. They did —but mainly on offense.