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Joe Mazzulla reveals why new Celtics starter sat late in Pistons loss
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- Joe Mazzulla reveals why new Celtics starter sat late in Pistons loss
BOSTON — Jordan Walsh has been an incredible bright spot for the Celtics over the past month since being promoted to the starting five. However, Walsh found himself on the bench for the final six minutes of regulation in Boston’s 112-105 loss to the Pistons on Monday night.
Walsh finished with eight points and six rebounds in the defeat over 18 minutes but was pulled in favor of veteran Anfernee Simons during crunch time.
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“I thought we needed scoring at that time,” Joe Mazzulla said after the loss. “We were down multiple possessions. I also felt like the points that Cunningham got weren’t match-up dependent. Really just, he got a lot - he got six threes. He made some pick-and-roll threes. I liked what Ant was giving us on the offensive end and what Ant gave us defensively. So I think at that time you’re looking to just score and kind of have an offensive lineup out there.”
The Celtics held their own defensively late with Simons on the floor with the three-guard lineup. However, Boston’s offense failed to sustain any scoring momentum late. They managed just 12 points in the final 6:15 of the game, continuing a trend of scoring just 24 points in each of the final three quarters.
The Pistons outscored Boston by 15 points in the final three games to emerge with the comeback victory and improve to 21-5 on the season. The Celtics have now dropped two straight games after starting 10-2 following Walsh’s insertion into the starting five. However, Mazzulla does not think the defeats are correlated despite letdowns in the second half of both defeats.
“I thought in the first game, that was just, we didn’t play well,” Mazzulla said. “This game, I thought we executed. Thought we got some really good looks. I thought we didn’t make them. We obviously had some possessions where we either didn’t execute, find the right spacing, or we had 13 turnovers. A couple of those live-ball were for dunks. But I thought it was a better process tonight than it was in the past game, for sure, I thought they just made some more plays than we did down the stretch.”
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The Celtics will get three days to regroup now before returning to action on Friday night at TD Garden against the Heat.
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