
Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard drives toward the basket in front of Celtics guard Jaylen Brown on Sunday in Boston. Steven Senne/Associated Press
BOSTON — When Jaylen Brown signed his supermax contract in the summer of 2023, he voiced his desire for the Celtics to get back to their defensive roots. The comments set the tone for a title run last season when Boston was consistently elite defensively.
Brad Stevens, the team’s president of basketball operations, did his best to keep the roster intact, but recreating the defense the Celtics played last season has been a work in progress. Coach Joe Mazzulla called the group inconsistent last week after its first losing streak of the year. That inconsistency returned Sunday night in a 123-114 home loss to the Pacers. It was statistically the second-worst defensive outing of the year for Boston, which played without starters Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. But the Celtics looked overmatched all night against the Pacers’ powerful offense.
With four losses in the last six games and a defense ranking 15th in the league in that stretch, Brown is demanding change from his teammates and coaches.
“We’ve got to get back to emphasizing the defensive side of the ball,” Brown said. “It’s kind of slipped over the last few games, our intensity. Teams are pressuring us and being physical with us. We’ve got to do the same stuff back to them. We did some good stuff in spots, but just not enough.”
Brown hinted that some issues may be related to a different level of urgency this year.
“We’ve had some great moments this season and maybe some comfort has slipped in,” Brown said. “Offensively, we’re fine. I just think defensively we’ve got to find ways to get more stops and be more consistent protecting the basket, helping each other, communicating. We just didn’t emphasize that enough.
“Defense is something that you’ve got to have effort. We haven’t had as much intensity and effort that we need. That’s pretty much it.”
The Celtics will need to find that defensive intensity quickly as the Eastern Conference standings tighten up. The Knicks sit just one game back of Boston after winning seven straight and the Celtics’ toughest month of the season looms in January, starting Thursday with a four-game trip. The margin of error is gone for Boston in the standings after a dominant start, and the team will need to rediscover its identity to keep pace.
“Winning in the NBA is hard,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “We’ve got to understand that. We know that. Everybody is confident in our abilities and who we can be as a team. We’ve just got to do it. Hasn’t been the best stretch for us. That’s OK. Nobody’s panicking or anything like that. We’ve just got to be better.”
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