Celtics' Kristaps Porzingis drops defiant take after 21-point loss to Lakers

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Though the Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday, they would lose in disappointing fashion to the Lakers on Thursday night, 117-96. As the Celtics have been slumping compared to the success last season when they won the championship, star Kristaps Porzingis speaks on the 21-point loss and the team’s outlook for the foreseeable future.

It was another relatively down game for the duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown as Porzingis led the way with 22 points on nine for 16 shooting from the field to go along with seven rebounds, two assists, and a block. Though he was disappointed in the performance from Boston, he believes that the team is on the up and that the outing could be because of a back-to-back according to The Athletic.

"​​I think we're starting to play better," Porziņģis said, "but we just didn't have a good night tonight. We had a back-to-back. That has to go into the equation, so that's honestly what it is a little bit. But to be honest I feel like we are starting to play better and I think we'll be fine."

Looking at Brown, he finished with 17 points on seven for 19 shooting from the field to go along with eight rebounds and three assists as he describes the team’s performance as “tired.”

"You can give them credit, but I just think we came out flat," Brown said. "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 like ramp it up in the third quarter. It just wasn't there tonight."

Kristaps Porzingis sees positive trajectory in Celtics

As the Celtics look to fix their mistakes by the trade deadline possibly, Porzingis is still confident that they are headed in a positive trajectory and that they have to clean up some aspects like stopping teams from the get-go which Los Angeles had a fast start.

"I just feel it," Porziņģis said. "I feel how we are. I'm getting into my rhythm and we're finding a rhythm as a team. There's nights like this that of course happen. It happened last year. It's happening this year a little bit more, but I don't think we're too far off of where we need to be. We just need to keep our head down, keep working and I believe we'll peak at the right moment."

"They had a really good first half and they were really, really efficient, and we didn't have our best game, to put it in simple words," Porziņģis continued. "We played a little bit low energy maybe in the first half. The second half I felt like we came out better, but they already had a good lead. There was one good moment we had. I think we were making it back and could have made it to (single digits), we missed the free throws and again they made a little run and it kind of slipped out of our hands. So it was not a good night for us; it was a good night for them."

Boston is now 31-14, second in the East, as they next face the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday.

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