5 takeaways win as Jazz duel against Jaylen Brown and the Celtics win

COMMENT

The Boston Celtics ended their long West Coast road trip with a 122-108 defeat to a Utah Jazz team that looks like a true contender.

Five takeaways if the Celtics can (finally) refocus their attention back home.

The Celtics looked tired, and the Jazz looked better.

Respecting the Celtics, the West Coast outings are exhausting, and it’s a big task to complete a long game against perhaps the best team in the league at the moment.

That being said, the Jazz were just getting better, and probably would have been better off, even if the Celtics had opened their road trip in Salt Lake City. The ball bounced around, and even if shots didn’t fall, the Utah offense created looks that looked sustainable. The Jazz defense pulled Boston, as expected, directly into Rudy Gobert, and Boston’s shots around the edge were all an adventure with Gobert in the paint. Donovan Mitchell cleared the agreements in the third quarter and helped the Jazz build a double-digit lead.

“You can ‘t make mistakes against these guys,” Brad Stevens said. “They were extremely well oiled in the attack. Just a special team to compete with, and if you make a mistake, they’ll pay you. ‘

The Jazz have all the pieces – a young, superstar in Donovan Mitchell, a good defense and a lot of shooting. Brad Stevens compared them to the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, and on closer inspection, the statement holds water.

The Celtics’ defense strategy was pretty solid.

Early in the game, the Celtics made it clear that they were planning to switch everything (except a few pieces in the zone). Sometimes the Jazz (almost entirely Mitchell) punished them, but switching helped keep the Jazz away from the 3-point line for much of the game. The Jazz like to get teams in rotation by swinging the ball around the track, and Boston tried to take the element away from their game.

Utah, who scored 74 points in the second half, are just a tough team to protect. Small break points against a team with so much shooting and playmaking are magnified. In Tuesday’s tumultuous game, Utah’s offense had too much juice.

“They seem to be playing the best basketball right now,” Jayson Tatum said. ‘Guys there play well, and they just click. They just play very well together. ”

Daniel Theis is burning from three points.

In December, Theis shot 2-for-13 out of three. Since then, he is 21-for-36 from deep – 58 percent – after shooting 5-for-6 against Utah. The Jazz were willing to give Theis three points to Theis, and Theis made them pay until he went out of the game in the fourth quarter.

Theis has always had the potential to be a good shooter. When reporters were allowed into the Celtics training facility, Theis’s threesome from deep deep could be seen splashing with consistency. Clearly, he will not keep shooting at nearly 60 percent, but if Theis forces teams to respect his range, he adds a lot of value to Boston’s slashers.

Jaylen Brown did indeed look completely healthy.

Before the game, Brad Stevens said that Brown – who has been sidelined with a sore knee for two games in a row – was at full strength again, and he equalized on Tuesday: 33 points on 12-for-20 shooting. Brown started the game with three consecutive tries and kept the Celtics in the game when Utah threatened to pull away. Holding off a few games may have helped save his legs a bit as a long journey rounded off.

Brown told reporters after the game that he struggled with his knee briefly in the third quarter, but that he felt significantly better after being hurt for several weeks.

Kemba Walker’s struggle continues.

At some point, it feels like he’s taking on Walker’s struggles over and over, but his importance to this team cannot be overstated.

That’s why it’s so worrying for Boston that Walker simply could not find the series for much of this road trip, and he does not seem to be getting much separation against Utah. Walker finishes 2-for-12 from the floor and 1-for-4 from deep, placing just seven points. After Tuesday’s 1-for-8 performance inside the arc, he fell to 33.3 percent on two-pointers.

We will keep saying: there is still time. Brad Stevens still expresses confidence in Walker. But the concerns are certainly real.

“We need to look at ways to do a better job as staff to help him,” Stevens said. ‘Definitely, we’ll keep going, because he’s struggled the last two games to shoot it, but he’s doing a lot of other things. He is a big part of us if we are going to be who we want to be. I really believe he will be that man. ”