By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Celtics got a much-needed road victory on Wednesday night, but Brad Stevens was not pleased with his team's effort against the Dallas Mavericks. At least not on the defensive end.
Stevens did not mince words about the Celtics' defensive performance following their 109-103 win in Dallas.
"I thought we were awful defensively," said Stevens, via the Boston Globe's Gary Washburn. "They missed a lot of open shots. We played it well enough to win but not good enough as we need to be a really good team."
Whoa, Brad. That is perhaps just a tad bit harsh, considering the Celtics were playing without their defensive leader, Marcus Smart. They also didn't have Gordon Hayward, and were down a pair of centers in Robert Williams and Vincent Poirier. Without those two bigs, and with Daniel Thies in foul trouble, the Celtics had to rely on the Enes Kanter for 21 minutes, a player who really doesn't know how to play defense. At all. Somehow, despite plays like this, Kanter finished a plus-21 for the evening.
Stevens did back off his "awful" assessment at one point, but he had a laundry list of issues that presented themselves throughout the game.
"You can't leave shooters open the way we leave shooters open. Transition needs to get better. Our switching needs to be better. Communication needs to be better," he said. "'Awful' is probably strong. We had some really good possessions. We just didn't have enough of them that you felt like, 'OK, we can really stop them from getting a good look right here,' and they do that to people. They're a good offense, but we need to play a lot better than we did."
Essentially, Stevens wasn't happy about anything the Celtics did on the defensive end, and he aired out all of Boston's dirty laundry. It wasn't as bad as Stevens would lead one to believe, considering the Celtics held the NBA's top-rated offense (without their MVP candidate Luka Doncic), to just 39 percent shooting. Despite their lack of big bodies, the C's also held Kristaps Porzingis to just 23 points on 8-for-19 shooting before he fouled out in the fourth quarter.
But Stevens' critiques are warranted. Boston forced just seven turnovers on Wednesday, and their lack of communication led to lots of open looks for the Mavs. Guard Seth Curry took advantage for Dallas, scoring 20 off the bench, canning four of his eight threes. There were several defensive lapses late in the game as Dallas scored nine points in the final 90 seconds, turning what should have been a comfortable win into a somewhat tense victory.
What's promising is Boston players agree with their coach, and aren't fighting back against his constructive criticism. Jaylen Brown took the brunt of the blame for Boston's defensive lapses after the game, and will use the performance as motivation going forward.
"A lot of it was me. I need to be a little bit more sound, especially with Smart out," said Brown. "When Smart is not here I'm the defensive captain, so I have to come out and make sure that I'm a little bit more sound. I made some good plays and we executed some good stops, but I think we can get a little bit better starting with my energy and starting with me."
That sort of accountability is another encouraging sign that the ills of last year are nowhere near this year's team. And while the defenses lapses were aplenty on Wednesday night, those should improve when the Celtics finally get healthy. If not, Wednesday night was a valuable lesson that no matter who is on the court or who they are playing, the Celtics can't afford to coast on the defensive end.
