4 Instant reactions from Celtics' brutal loss to Kevin Durant, Rockets

After an undefeated week, the Boston Celtics finally came back down to earth against the Houston Rockets. Kevin Durant and co. came into TD Garden and put an absolute beatdown on the Cs, 128-101.

Here’s what stood out:

The Celtics felt absolutely outmatched

This was the sort of game that you could’ve watched without any type of scoreboard and known exactly how close it was. These two teams were on different planets. Every offensive possession felt like a struggle for the Celtics. Houston made them fight for every clean look they got. 

Even when Boston managed to score, the Rockets would just come down the other end and effortlessly put up a few points. Whether it was Kevin Durant drilling a pull-up jumper or Alperen Sengun relentlessly backing down whichever Celtic was tasked with trying to stop him, I can’t stress enough how easy it was for Houston to score.

It didn’t even feel like it was due to a lack of effort from Boston, they were just outmatched.

In fairness to them, Saturday’s meeting with the Rockets was the second night of a back-to-back and their third game in four nights.

We are now approaching Week 3 in the search for Payton Pritchard and Derrick White’s three-point shots

As the subheading reads, the Celtics' starting backcourt pair hasn’t been remotely reliable from beyond the arc this season. Heading into Saturday’s game, Payton Pritchard had made just 17.4% of his attempts from deep, while Derrick White shot just above 25%.

Neither player was able to snap out of his respective cold spell against the Rockets, as they combined to shoot just 2-9 from long range.

It’s too early in the season to really judge this Celtics team. They’ve shown flashes of potential, but then they will lay an egg like they did on Saturday. If they have any hope of playing up to their potential consistently, White and Pritchard are going to have to start making threes again.

Someone please help Jaylen Brown

This is a similar point, but Boston needs someone to give Jaylen Brown some help. The former No. 3 overall pick didn’t play at the same level as he had been entering the night, but the lack of firepower around him didn’t help.

Houston was able to commit nearly all of their attention to Brown, and it clearly frustrated him. There were several forced shots, turnovers, or frustration fouls where it was easy to see that the Rockets had gotten to him.

If White, Pritchard, or anyone else served as a threat on offense, it would be at least a little more difficult for teams to key in on Jaylen to this degree.

Brown finished the night with just 12 points on 6-14 from the field, with five assists and five turnovers.

They still give out flopping technicals in the NBA?

As described in the opening section, just about everything that could go wrong for Boston did. Chris Boucher, who played his first minutes of the week, was hit with a flopping technical foul. There’s a fair chance that many of you reading this forgot that those even existed.

The rule was first introduced ahead of the 2023-24 season (what a great season it was). Early on, officials weren’t afraid to dish out flopping techs, but significantly slowed down when the calls started to disrupt the flow of the game.

After a quick Google search, I found that they didn’t completely quit making this specific call, but it doesn’t happen often.