Jaylen Brown was a bystander on the Celtics’ final possession Wednesday night as shot attempts from Payton Pritchard and Xavier Tillman fell short in a 117-116 loss to the 76ers. Boston’s offense came up short late but the team’s biggest issues in crunch time came on the defensive end as the Celtics allowed 42 points in the final frame to blow a 13-point lead.
Brown took stock of the attack and pointed to a potential reason for the late letdown after the loss.
“I think just tendencies,” Brown said. “We let Maxey get going, and we got to do a better job, especially on one of their better players on the floor. Got to be more attention to detail on him. We let him kind of play free a little bit where somebody got to, you know, make sure we can’t let that happen. I don’t know if it was too focused on the offensive end, but we can’t just let guys come here and just do what they want.”
Brown led the Celtics with 25 points in the win including 12 that came in the fourth quarter. However, he went 1-of-4 from the field in the final two minutes of the game and did not get a touch on the game’s final possession.
“It’s tough, you know, it’s tough,” Brown said. “Definitely a winnable game for us. We had some opportunities. Even at the end, we had some opportunities that didn’t go our way. It’s a learning experience. This whole, you know, it’s going to be a learning experience from day one. We got a bunch of new guys, we’re playing a new style. I thought we played hard today. I thought we played a winnable game. We just, you know, some crucial errors that cost us.”
Brown and the Celtics won’t have long to reflect on the defeat before heading to New York for a challenging road matchup against the Knicks Friday night. The start of three-game road trip will test Boston’s new look roster right away but Brown is confident this group will bounce back.
“I’m looking forward to watching film and learning and staying with the journey,” Brown said. “But it happens. We got a new group that’s still figuring things out. Some of these other teams and stuff have played together for a little bit more, so it’s gonna be some ups and downs. But I’m looking forward to just learning every day with the group. And I’m looking forward to when we get to that point where we catch our wind, what that could possibly be.”
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