There is a lot of hand-wringing over the Boston Celtics blow 22-point lead in their season-opening loss to the Pistons. Obviously, the made plenty of mistakes along the way, so I wanted to take a closer look at what those were. But more than just specific plays where Boston screwed up, these are also representative concept that the Celtics mishandled. It's not JUST that a certain player did a certain thing, it's that they did a few of these types of things along the way, and each had an cumulative affect.
Before we get into the mistakes, the Pistons deserve a lot of credit for the defensive clinic they put on over most of the game, but especially the final 17 minutes or so. Defensive sequences like this one that denied Boston two layups were a part of their run.
The Celtics shot just under 37% and were -29 over this stretch of the game. The Pistons played really well.
Lyn Collins said it takes two to make a thing go right, but it also takes two to make things go this wrong. So here are the biggest mistakes Boston made on their way to losing a big lead on opening night.
Poor offensive execution and missed layups/rim reads
That great Pistons defense didn’t need any help, but the Celtics obliged anyway with some really poor offensive execution.
Payton Pritchard decided to iso Isaiah Joe and not only did it not go well, he was left with few options for a long time. All four Celtics were on the right side of the floor and somehow Luka Garza broke free for what ended up being a decent look.
But again, they needed a bucket there to stop the bleeding, and it didn’t look like a lot of the Celtics understood what was trying to be accomplished. The Celtics were frantic, they got cross-matched, and they lost Javonte Green for a wide open three to make it 81-75. That's a potential six-point swing.
Here’s another great example of the Celtics struggling to get a good shot and the Pistons benefiting.
It looked like Pritchard wanted to attack the mismatched and backed the ball out to do so, but he had Garza at the top of the key to reverse the ball and get the defense out of position.
A swing to Garza sets up a pin-down from Tatum for Sam Hauser, which Tatum could then flip into a post-up against a smaller defender. That would take two seconds to set up, and even if the Pistons helped to get the ball out of Tatum’s hands, Pritchard could have set a pin-down for Scheierman to get him an open kick-out from Tatum and the Pritchard probably would have had a backdoor cut available. Garza would have remained at the top as a safety valve.
None of those progressions happened. All they got was a desperation shot from Hauser with the clock winding down. The Celtics didn’t get back, they lost their matchups, and the Pistons cashed in for three.
Missed layups and reads at the rim were also a problem. The Celtics were 16-27 within five feet of the rim. Jayson Tatum was 2-7, This was a good example of a bad rim read, and Tatum forcing something that wasn’t there.
Derrick White was wide open in the corner for a higher percentage shot than the layup Tatum took.
At this point Boston was already down 10, but with three minutes left, a three to cut it to seven would have given Boston a chance. But now look at what the Pistons get to do while Tatum flails out of bounds and is then late to get back into the play.
This is why missed layups can be so damaging. People will focus on missed threes, but missed layups are so much more damaging because they almost always result in a five-on-four.
Defensive mistakes
The Pistons made some good plays, so I’m not going to do things like fault Neemias Queta for not getting over fast enough to challenge Cade Cunnigham on a drive. Cunningham is a superstar and there's not much that can be done to stop him in certain circumstances.
But there definitely things the Celtics could have done better, like Jayson Tatum on this play.
Once Hugo Gonzalez is squared up on Paul Reed, Tatum should have hedged out to the corner a little more instead of playing with almost both feet in the paint and a guy standing in the corner.
Even if you say he’s historically no better than an average three-point shooter, he shot 51.6% from the corners.
Some of the defensive mistakes came because Mitchell Robinson had a terrible game and the Celtics had to go with Luka Garza for stretches of that third quarter run. Garza is slow to rotate and he gets pushed around a little too much against a team like Detroit.
If a fully engaged and good Robinson got four of these third quarter minutes, I’d bet the lead would have been bigger heading into the fourth.
Fouling
The Celtics were reaching and committing silly fouls. At 7:59 in the third, the Celtics gave up an offensive rebound and then Paul George reached in and gave Jalen Duren a cheap and-one. At 5:09, with the Celtics in the penalty, Neemias Queta blew a layup and then fouled Javonte Green trying to track down the loose ball. At 2:32, Sam Hauser bit on an upfake with one second left on the shot clock to put Isaiah Joe on the line.
Those are three silly, undisciplined fouls that led to five points heading into the fourth. The Celtics went into the fourth up 88-82, but that could have been an 11-point lead. That makes a big difference.
Then in the fourth quarter, the Celtics got too close to Duncan Robinson as they chased him over screens. Some of the contact seemed marginal, but it was enough that Boston couldn't challenge, and turned misses into points for the Pistons.
“We fouled a jump shooter three times,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “I think Robinson missed one. That's eight points right there on fouling jump shooters.”
Bad Turnovers
It sounds simple, but scoring buckets prevents runs from happening. With a 20-plus point lead, any baskets will do. But the Celtics had some horrific turnovers in the midst of watching their lead slip away. These two from Tatum were brutal.
I’ll go out on a limb and say your best player throwing the ball straight out of bounds isn’t how Mazzulla drew things up. Both of those turnovers led to points for Detroit. Luka Garza got stripped and it led to a Javonte Green three-pointer. Even a couple that didn’t directly result in Pistons points, like Baylor Scheierman’s travel with 10:48 to go or Derrick White’s offensive foul with 9:30 left were scoring chances that make a difference when the lead is disappearing. White’s turnover was when the score was 96-87 Boston, so a missed chance to keep the lead at double digits is huge.
We see the big numbers — “The Celtics blew a 22 point lead!” — but as you can see here, there are probably a handful of plays that make that possible. A made layup or a good read for an open shot puts two or three points on the board for Boston and lets them get back to set their defense. If that results in a stop, that becomes a four-to-six-point swing that changes the entire dynamic of a run.
Protecting the ball and not committing silly fouls are easy ways to keep points off the board of an opponent and put them on your side instead.
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