Celtics' Jaylen Brown makes 'tired' admission after worst loss of season to Lakers
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In the last week, the Boston Celtics have played five games. And while they were able to stay relatively fresh in this time span, the fatigue seemed to set in on Thursday, as the C’s were trounced by the rival Los Angeles Lakers, 117-96.
The Celtics’ largest loss of the season came on the second night of a back-to-back. The first night saw the Green Team struggle against the short-handed Los Angeles Clippers, but ultimately prevail 117-113 in overtime. By the time that contest wrapped up, the C’s had about 20 hours until their primetime showdown with the Lakers.
Boston was once 4-0 on no rest during the 2024-25 campaign, but it’s since fallen to 5-3. Celtics star Jaylen Brown thinks a lack of energy played a role in Boston getting out to a slow start on Thursday and later facing its largest halftime deficit (19 points) of the season, per Jay King of The Athletic.
“You can give them credit, but I just think we came out flat,” Brown told reporters. “We just kind of looked tired. Maybe you could say just the game from last night going into overtime carried over, but on both sides of the floor, they just had more energy than us. And we tried to ramp it up in the third quarter. It just wasn't there tonight.”
Where did the Celtics go wrong against the Lakers?
Brown and company outscored the Lakers by four points in the third quarter, yet they were still down 15. In the final frame, Los Angeles’ lead ballooned to as much as 28 points, the most Boston has trailed by all season. The Celtics couldn’t generate any sort of run when they needed to, shooting under 40% from the floor and just 34.1% from 3-point land.
The Lakers gave their archrival Celtics misery on Thursday by a final score of 117-96.
What a way to take down the defending champs pic.twitter.com/nKaXZ6athY
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) January 24, 2025
Although the Lakers averaged the 28th-most triples in the NBA heading into Thursday—notching around 12 makes per game—they drained 11 triples in the first half alone. Brown accounted for three of the Celtics’ 14 makes from deep and finished with 17 points and eight rebounds after 33 minutes of play.
The rest of Boston’s starters combined for 44 points, which was the same output of points produced by Lakers stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Meanwhile, Brown and now six-time All-Star Jayson Tatum both shot under 42% from the field and starting guards Jrue Holiday and Derrick White converted on just two of their 11 shot attempts.
LeBron James closes out the 1st quarter with a MEAN slam pic.twitter.com/b4pcw84wh0
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) January 24, 2025
“Tonight wasn't a great showing for our team energy-wise,” Brown admitted. “I missed a lot of baskets around the rim and my team needs me to make those. So I need to be able to produce for my team.”
After this lackluster performance, there won’t be much time to rest for the C’s. They square off with the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday afternoon in their first meeting since Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals. The 31-14 Celtics, who’ve gone 5-5 in their last 10 games, will look to recapture some of that Finals magic against the 24-21 Mavs and end their road four-game road trip with a bounce-back win.
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