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All-Star guard Jaylen Brown expressed his belief that Tuesday’s 105-104 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers after blowing a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter came down to the Boston Celtics’ mindset.
“I think we are a much better team than we showed today. Today was just a mentality loss. We had the game and then we got comfortable, so it was more of a mindset thing than X’s and O’s. We gotta just be the more disciplined, the more militant team. We weren’t that. Usually we are that, and we felt that today and I think that’s the reason why they were able to get back into the game.
“Our mindset was a little bit too lax, and we were too careless with the ball. We weren’t intentional on offense. We kind of let guys get to tendencies that we were supposed to take away. We gave up offensive rebounds, stuff that all just comes with mindset.”
Boston led 93-71 with about nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but the Cavs outscored the Celtics 34-11 the rest of the way to snap the Celtics’ 11-game winning streak.
Although the Cavaliers are the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 40-21 record, the Celtics were fairly substantial road favorites Tuesday since Cleveland was without All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell and starting guard Max Strus due to injuries.
Also, Cavaliers center Evan Mobley suffered an ankle injury during the third quarter, limiting him to 23 minutes and rendering him unable to play in the fourth quarter.
However, Boston went cold in the fourth quarter, missing all eight of its three-point attempts during the frame.
By comparison, Cavaliers forward Dean Wade made all seven of his field goal attempts, including five from downtown, and scored 20 of his 23 points in the fourth.
That included what proved to be the game-winning shot, as he tipped in a miss from Darius Garland with 19 seconds remaining to give Cleveland a one-point lead.
The Celtics still had a chance to win it, and it looked for a moment like they would, as Garland was called for a foul on Tatum with less than one second remaining.
Cleveland challenged the call, though, and the foul was rescinded due to the determination that Tatum created the contact by kicking out his legs.
Boston got 20 or more points out of Brown, Tatum and Kristaps Porziņģis in Tuesday’s game, but the Celtics shot just 41.9 percent from the field and 39.5 percent from beyond the arc as a team, while also committing 13 turnovers.
By comparison, the Cavs shot 43.3 percent from the floor and a sparkling 47.6 percent from deep, and they only turned the ball over eight times.
Even with Tuesday’s loss, the Celtics are in an ideal position, as they have the best record in the NBA at 48-13 and lead the Milwaukee Bucks by 7.5 games for first place in the Eastern Conference.
The Celtics can’t afford to let bad feelings from the loss linger, though, since they have a road game against the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets on tap for Thursday, marking the start of a four-game swing on the West Coast.
While it isn’t uncommon for teams to throw away a bad loss and move forward over the course of a long season, Brown stressed that the loss to Cleveland “matters,” and suggested that the Celtics have to learn from it so as not to repeat something similar in the future.
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