Celtics learn tough lesson of failed magic in Pistons rematch

After winning an instant classic against the first-place Detroit Pistons last month, the Boston Celtics failed to replicate the result on Monday. They fell to Detroit, 112-105, in a back-and-forth matchup.

Here's what stood out:

It’s really fun when your team is the one that pulls out a random zone defense

For years, Celtics fans have watched their team struggle when the opposition randomly throws a zone defense at them. Most notably, the Miami Heat would do this in the playoffs, and Boston would look as if they’d never seen anything like it before.

Well, the tables turned on Monday when the Cs threw their own junk defense at the Pistons late in the first quarter. Detroit was running a lineup featuring both Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson, two non-shooting threats, and the Celtics made them pay.

The Pistons played like a confused men’s league team trying to break down Boston’s defense for a majority of the closing minutes of the opening frame. They moved the ball, but did it slowly, with a fair dose of turnovers mixed in there, too.

Not to mention that they played right into the Celtics’ game plan by firing up plenty of three-point attempts, few of which found the bottom of the net.

If Duncan Robinson plays against the Celtics, Jaylen Brown is going to relentlessly hunt him

The opening possession of Monday’s game served as a great indicator of how the Celtics would approach the Duncan Robinson matchup. They forced Robinson to switch onto Jaylen Brown, then Brown backed him down for an easy baseline fadeaway.

Boston’s mismatch hunting continued throughout the first half as Brown relentlessly attacked Robinson. JB wound up with 18 points after the opening 24 minutes and got whatever he wanted against the Pistons guard.

He continued his offensive onslaught into the second half, even though the Pistons dialed up the pressure. Brown finished the night with 34 points on 13-25 from the field. He could’ve cracked 40 had he not shot 7-14 from the free-throw line.

The next time Payton Pritchard has a stiff neck -- watch out

Payton Pritchard was a late addition to Boston’s injury report on Monday morning when he was listed as questionable due to right neck spasms. The Celtics guard went through his normal pregame routine before he was officially ruled good to go for the meeting with the Pistons.

If you watched the first six minutes of this game, there’s no way that you would’ve known that he was experiencing any discomfort at all. He poured in 10 first-quarter points, drilling four of his five attempts from the field.

The remainder of the game was far less kind to Pritchard, but that had plenty to do with Ausar Thompson picking him up on defense. He scored just two more points throughout the final 36 minutes.

The Celtics’ late-game execution simply wasn’t good enough

Boston fought too hard to be in this game despite shooting the ball as if they had the capabilities of my friends and me to execute the way they did for the majority of the fourth quarter.

I mean, there were multiple possessions where Boston didn’t even get the ball past the three-point line until there were less than 10 seconds left on the shot clock. It didn’t help that they turned the ball over three times over the final 12 minutes, either.

If it wasn’t for Derrick White’s fourth-quarter explosion, this game would’ve been over long before the final buzzer.