Across an 82-game NBA slate, there are what you’d call scheduled losses.
Not necessarily because of the opponent, but because of how the schedule stacks up leading into that game.
Saturday night against the Houston Rockets was one of those for the Celtics. Boston was playing on the second night of a road-home back-to-back, coming off a game that went down to the wire. It was also their third game in four nights, and their sixth in nine. Meanwhile, Houston was on two days' rest and had played two fewer games than the Celtics.
“It obviously wasn’t our night. The Rockets played well. Good team. Well coached. They were prepared. And it just wasn’t our night tonight," Joe Mazzulla said. "That happens over the course of the season, and so it'll be more important about how we respond on Monday at shoot around and into the game on Monday night.”
Houston jumped out to a 13-point lead after the first quarter and never let it drop back below double digits. Seven Rockets finished in double figures, led by Kevin Durant’s 26 points on 8-of-11 (72.7%) shooting and 2-of-3 (66.7%) from three. As a team, Houston shot 42-of-77 (54.5%) from the field and 19-of-29 (65.5%) from deep against a Celtics defense that entered the night holding opponents to an NBA-worst 41.1% shooting. The Rockets’ 65.5% from three marked the first time in franchise history an opponent shot over 60% from deep against the Celtics on at least 25 attempts. Nine different Rockets shot at least 50%.
Conversely, the Celtics shot 40-of-103 (38.8%) from the field and 14-of-44 (31.8%) from three. It was just the 26th time — including playoffs — that Boston shot under 40% in the Mazzulla era (304 games).
“I don’t even know if there is a takeaway from this game,” Payton Pritchard said. “You just kinda turn the page. They punked us. And we’ve got to get ready for the next one.”
There really isn’t.
On top of it being a scheduled loss, the Rockets are simply a better team, and their size is too much for the Celtics to handle. On opening night, Houston’s starting lineup (Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant, Alperen Sengun, and Steven Adams) had an average height of 82.2 inches — the tallest starting lineup in a season opener since the stat was first tracked in 1970-71. On Saturday, Josh Okogie (6'4") replaced Adams, but the Rockets still started three players taller than any Celtic, and all three were elite athletes.
The result: a 53-36 rebounding gap and 11 blocked shots — a size disadvantage the Celtics were never going to overcome.
“Sometimes, you know, even when we had a championship-level team, you got popped on some nights like this,” Pritchard added. “You just turn the page and get ready for the next game. It’s 82 games, so a lot of traveling, a lot of back-to-backs at times. So it can be tiring. And I think they came off two nights of rest, and they showed it tonight and killed us.”
The good news for the Celtics is that the schedule is finally going to open up a bit. And while it’s tough to say after a 27-point loss, all things considered, 3-4 isn’t the worst place to be. They’ve faced four opponents that finished in the top six of their conference last season. In the East, that includes Cleveland at number one, New York at number three, and Detroit at number six. The Rockets finished second in the Western Conference. Three of those teams — Cleveland, New York, and Houston — each won 50 games last year.
Given the talent, along with a compact schedule — seven games in 11 days and two back-to-backs in different cities — Boston has handled a tough start about as well as could be expected.
They’ve been competitive in every game except Saturday night against Houston, when everything that could go wrong did. But against quality opponents, they’ve shown glimpses of what they can do despite navigating significant roster turnover and adjusting to a new style of play, which is encouraging for the team’s long-term direction.
As they begin to figure things out and the schedule eases, they could start building some consistency, especially after the tough stretch they’ve already faced.
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