The perfect road trip was there for the taking.
After dispatching the Warriors (31-28), Lakers (34-23), and Suns (33-26) by an average of more than 16 points per game, the Celtics (38-20) arrived at Ball Arena on Wednesday night with a chance to finish off a 4-0 Western Conference swing.
Instead, they ran into altitude, fatigue, and a Nuggets team (37-22) that found another gear late.
The result was a 103-84 loss that snapped Boston’s four-game winning streak and sent them home at 3-1 on the trip - still impressive, but not flawless.
For three quarters, this looked like a game the Celtics could steal.
Despite playing their third game in four nights (in three different cities), Boston leaned on its defense to keep things tight. They limited Denver to 66 points through the first 34 minutes, and spent much of the night turning Nikola Jokic into more of a scorer than a playmaker. The three-time MVP finished with 30 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists, but he was inefficient early (11-for-28 overall, 4-for-13 from three) and struggled to consistently orchestrate the offense the way he typically does.
Anecdotally, he doesn’t look 100%. That’s bad news for Denver moving forward, but that’s a different topic for a different day.
Boston led 24-21 after the first quarter, with Jaylen Brown scoring 12 of those points. Neemias Queta provided a spark in the opening frame as well, knocking down three shots, including a smooth turnaround hook over Jokic and a last-second alley-oop from Payton Pritchard. Joe Mazzulla even experimented with playing Queta alongside Nikola Vucevic for stretches - a look the Celtics hadn’t shown since Vucevic’s arrival earlier this month.
The Celtics stretched their lead to eight early in the second quarter behind a scorching stretch from Derrick White, who poured in 18 of Boston’s 24 points in the period in a homecoming game for the Colorado native. He drilled four 3-pointers and briefly steadied an offense that otherwise struggled to find rhythm.
And yet, even with all that, the warning signs were there.
Boston’s bench couldn’t generate offense.
Through the first three quarters, the reserves combined for just five points, shooting 2-of-18 from the field. Pritchard and Vucevic went a combined 2-for-13 and 1-for-7 from deep. The Nuggets, meanwhile, piled up second-chance opportunities during key stretches, grabbing seven offensive rebounds in less than four minutes during one pivotal second-quarter run.
Still, Boston entered halftime with a 48-47 lead.
The third quarter was where the fatigue, and math, caught up to them, as the Celtics shot just 28% from the field.
Brown and White, who combined for 43 points on the night, couldn’t carry the scoring burden alone. Brown finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds but went 7-for-21 from the floor and 1-for-6 from three. White’s 20 points were front-loaded - outside of his explosive second quarter, he managed only two free throws in the fourth.
Denver began to find cracks.
Tim Hardaway Jr. sparked an 11-0 run late in the third with a spinning layup and a feed to Cameron Johnson. Jokic added 15 points in the frame. Then came the decisive blow:
A 15-0 run that stretched from the end of the third into the fourth, flipping what had been a one-point Boston lead into a double-digit Denver cushion.
Even when Jokic went to the bench to open the fourth, the Celtics couldn’t capitalize. Denver backup Jonas Valanciunas scored back-to-back baskets to push the lead to 81-67, and from there, it unraveled quickly.
Boston shot just 34.9% from the field and 27% from beyond the arc (12-for-43), marking its worst shooting performance of the season and the first time since December 2022 that a Celtics team shot below 35% in a game.
The Nuggets, despite missing Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson along with losing Jamal Murray to illness in the first quarter, outscored Boston 42-17 in bench points, and closed the night with control.
Mazzulla waved the white flag midway through the fourth, inserting the end of the bench as Denver’s lead swelled past 20.
It would be easy to overreact to the optics of an 84-point output and a 19-point loss, but context matters.
This was Boston’s third game in four nights, at altitude, against a rested opponent.
It was also the final stop on a road trip that otherwise strengthened the Celtics’ hold on the No. 2 seed in the East.
They defended well for long stretches, executed a clear plan against Jokic early, and generated open threes. They just didn’t hit ’em.
The bigger picture remains intact.
Boston returns home to face the Nets (15-42) on Friday, beginning a stretch where four of their next five games will be at TD Garden.
The possibility of Jayson Tatum’s return continues to loom over the schedule, adding another layer of anticipation to what’s already shaping up to be a critical final stretch.
Wednesday night wasn’t pretty.
It was a reminder of how thin the margins are against elite teams, and how quickly things can snowball when the legs go and the shots stop falling.
But a 3-1 West Coast swing still counts as a success, even if the last stop left the green gasping for air.