
Boston Celtics stumble with a costly loss to the Detroit Pistons as Jaylen Brown’s impressive stat line is overshadowed by mental lapses and missed free throws. Can the team bounce back from self-inflicted wounds and cold shooting nights? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal examines late-game turnovers, questionable decision-making, and how Derrick White’s fourth-quarter heroics weren’t enough to seal the win. Insights include Payton Pritchard’s inconsistent shooting, bench struggles headlined by Anfernee Simons, and Joe Mazzulla’s move to a zone defense—will these tactical experiments pay off against top contenders? Key discussion points feature Jaylen Brown’s dual brilliance and frustration, the Celtics’ three-point woes, and upcoming opportunities for young wings like Jordan Walsh and Hugo Gonzalez. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at a surreal press row moment with Pistons legend Rick Mahorn. What does this performance say about Boston's championship aspirations? Don’t mis...
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Be physical, be flat. We are the winner. Chilene takes on Ole Miss, followed by James Madison in Oregon. It's first round coverage on the College Football Playoff presented by allstate Saturday at 3:30 Eastern on TNT and HBO. Max, are you ready? Let's go. The Celtics problems were self inflicted against the Detroit Pistons. They had it. They should have won it. But they didn't. We're talking about it right now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Uhhuh. Yep, yep. Be town. Be ever ready. It's the seas who else could it be? What they going to say? Ass screaming like J.T. coralis recap the madness every game, every Practice Prime Time JE&D White on the sideline Ren and J how it started Raising B is how we finish Locked on Celtics pod home of the winners. Welcome back to Lock on Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown podcast network where it's your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday on the number one Boston Celtics podcast in the world. On the number one sports podcast network in the world. And that's all thanks to you. The everyday or who is with me Monday through Friday plus bonus podcast this weekend. They play Friday and Saturday. I have bonus podcasts for you there. They're all free. They're available Everywhere. They're on YouTube. Get into the comment section there. Share your thoughts. I'm John Corrales. If you're new to the show, I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Boston Sports Journal. I've been doing a version of this job for about 20 years doing this podcast for 10, and I've written a couple books about the team as well. Today's show brought to you by fanduel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com Place your live bets on the NFL and the NBA all season long. Later on in the third segment, I'll explain. We'll get into some of the zone defense that the Celtics were trying. I do enjoy the fact that the Celtics tried some zone defense. They played twice as much zone in this game than they did all season long. Also in the third segment, I'm going to tell a story about a piece of pie. I'm not kidding. A piece of pie that made this one of the weirdest nights of my life. Okay. And it's completely basketball related. I'm going to tell that story at the end of the podcast. So that's it. In the second segment, we'll get into the bench. We're going to Jalen Brown. I want to start, though, with the reason why the Celtics lost this game. 112105 to the Detroit Pistons. Self inflicted wounds. This the Celtics mistakes were so costly in this game. They did it to themselves. And the cold shooting didn't help either. The Celtics had the turnovers were were killers. The it felt like every turnover the Celtics had led to points, they turned it over 13 times, which is not a lot, but 17 points off those turnovers. They only had two more turnovers, but they gave up six more points off of those turnovers. They had six turnovers in the fourth quarter alone. And not only that, the fouls, the missed shots, the mistakes. You go through the fourth quarter, the Celtics were down 104, 102. Derrick White hits a jump shot, they come back down. Jaylen Brown bites on a Tobias Harris up fake. So that self inflicted wound, stay down on the fakes. And he said it after the game, he needed to stay down on that fake. Bites on a fake, right. Jalen mentally wasn't. He was not sharp mentally. He had a great game overall. I mean, obviously. And again, I'll get again to that in the next. In the next segment. But Joe Jalen brain like Jalen Brown's freeing and slip there. Jalen Brown's overall game like the numbers, 34 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, three blocks, a steal. That's, you know, 52 shooting. Awesome. But too many brain farts in this one, and that was one of them. So he bites on the fake, he gives up two free throws. So I don't know what would have happened there, but if the Celtics had defended well and maybe gotten a stop, there they were, they would have had the ball. Down two with two and change left to go. Okay, so they didn't. Jalen gets fouled, misses two free throws again. Now Jalen at the line has been much better this season. He's been really good in the month of December on a fairly high volume. But in this one, misses these two free throws in the fourth quarter, he shot seven of 14 from the line. Overall. Fourth quarter, those. Those two free throws were the. He took four. So he was two for four in the. In the fourth quarter. So he misses. Those two come down. Cunningham hits, hits a jump shot. Derrick White hits a three. Cunningham comes down and answers. Then Derrick White. Hero of the fourth quarter. Hero of the fourth quarter, no doubt. Derrick White turnover. And not just the turnover. He just lost it. He was dribbling and the ball just said, nope, I'm going to Javonte Green. I want to go to him now. Like a baby going to. It's. Oh, daddy's holding him. Nope. No, I'm going to Mommy. I want mommy. Now the ball just magnet. Like, like it just. He lost it. I can't even explain it. So. Okay, bad turnover. Come down, Celtics. They. They. That's an empty possession. Celtics get the. I think this is where they get the challenge. Then Pritchard. Oh, there was a challenge earlier where Jalen Brown had a turnover. They won the challenge. And Jalen Brown just turned it over, just made a bad pass and gave it right back. Peyton Pritchard misses a shot with 36 seconds to go. Misses it so far, right, like we were looking at each other on press row. Like he. How. How did he miss it that bad? And it's just a missed shot, but it was out. That was an outrageously bad miss. How do you. How does. How does Peyton Pritchard miss that poorly, that badly. So self inflicted stuff. The Celtics had opportunities. Bad turnovers, bad foul. And that. That's where in the fourth quarter, you know, Cade Cunningham had a great fourth quarter. No doubt. Derrick White had also a better fourth quarter. His fourth quarter, 14 points on 5 of 9 shooting. 3 of 6 from 3 is better than 9 points on 4 of 7 shooting for Cade Cunningham, who had an assist. So did Derek White, like Derek White outplayed Cade Cunningham in the fourth quarter, but because the Celtics had the, you know, just. It was one of those nights where it doesn't even look right. You can't even. When does Derrick White turn the ball over like that? And he knew it. It's just one of those crazy nights. When did. When has Jalen brown this season? 7 of 14. And it's funny because he. He was so good in so many ways, but then you look at him and you're like, oh, what's. What is. What's Jalen doing out there? But I'm gonna save that for the. The. The cold shooting also killed them. One of the ten from three in the third quarter. Oh, of eight from three in the second quarter. So the Celtics come out to a. They started out fine. Their first quarter, 33 to 25. They played really well in that. In that first quarter, Peyton Pritchard came out hot. Jalen Brown was hitting like tough, tough, tough shots. They. They looked really good. They looked really good. Second quarter, okay, they were up eight, then they were up four. They. They went over eight from three in the second quarter and still only lost four points off their lead because they were still doing other things. They were still getting to the line. They were mitigating the damage. And even in the third quarter, it could have been much, much worse in the third quarter. They lost that third quarter by eight. They were 1 of 10 from three, but they got to the line a bunch. In fact, third quarter sucked because it was just a parade of fouls. There was no flow to that. That third quarter. It was gross. I don't know if they were complaining about it in the broadcast, but I Was I was just sitting there watching that third quarter like, oh, my God, just wake me up when this quarter is over. But the Celtics still hung around and gave themselves an opportunity. They went from up four to down four after. After three quarters. So they were still right there. But too many missed shots, too many turnovers. Obviously the Pistons are tough. They're going to have second chances. Obviously Cade Cunningham is tough. They are the number one team for a reason. The Celtics, if they played a cleaner game, if they hit a normal amount of shots, I don't have access to the expected shots, but I'm willing to bet that whatever the expected number is that it would have been Celtics. Celtics would have won this game by probably double digits if they hit the expected amount. They were 10 of 39 from 3 overall. And that's with Derrick White hitting 5 of 12. So quick math. 5 of 27 for the rest of the Celtics is very, very bad. One of five for Jalen, one of two for Jordan Walsh, two of eight for Pritchard. He his first couple and then. And missed the rest. Oh, five for Simons, O of two for Mina, O of two for Baylor. Just rough rock. You can't. The Celtics need to hit shots. They need to. I mean, obviously you need to hit shots to win, but the Celtics, it just needs to go a certain way. And if they're not hitting shots, they're not going to make up for it in a lot of other ways. And you got to be almost perfect in every other phase for the Celtics to win without making three pointers. And they weren't perfect in every other phase. That's how you lose this game. Get into Jalen Brown and some of the other individual performances, but Jalen especially, because as you can tell, I'm. I'm torn. I'm torn on what kind of game he had because it should have been. Jalen was awesome, but he wasn't awesome. He was also not awesome for a long stretch of this as well. That's coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. You get one big play, and suddenly everything feels different. That's why it's. That's what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. If you're not just watching the game, you get to react to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. The receiver gets hot. Defense tightens up the momentum flips after a turnover. This applies to the, you know, NBA as well. A shooter gets hot, defense tightens up. Turnover flips the momentum. It all applies there too. 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An invite to the members only Locked On Every day or Club Discord Server exclusive access to national bonus shows Members only Locked On Merch store It's all there and if we're on your Spotify wrapped up then prove it. Show us on social media. Tag the Lockdown Podcast network. You'll get five bucks off. They'll send you a code for a free month of the Everydayer Club. So go check that out and join the rest of the Everydayers with with me who are here Monday through Friday. Again, bonus podcasts when the Celtics have these Friday or Saturday games so check that out as well. Jalen Brown had, in raw terms, a. An incredible game. He again scored 34 points. He shot 52% from the field, 1 of 5 from 3, which is not great. 7 of 14 from the line, which is bad, right? Obviously 50 from the line. He had eight rebounds. He had seven assists, a steel, three blocks. He had four turnovers. And the turnovers were bad. Like, the turnovers were, I think, like a big problem. Like, he just coughed them up. They weren't. It felt like this was this duality. It was Jalen like old Jalen, where his head wasn't quite there, and he just got picked clean over and over again. Bad passes, get himself into trouble, driving without a place to. Without an outlet. The. The turnover with four minutes to go after the challenge, you know, the Celtics were down 6 at that point. All of these little opportunities, Celtics down six, Celtics down four, Celtics down two. To change the momentum of the game. And there's. There's Jalen somewhere in there making a play or missing free throws that kill that momentum somehow. And. But there's also the Jalen who's having the type of season that gets him on the NBA's MVP ladder. And like, he said it after the game, like, he was pissed at himself. He. He was not happy with the game that he had. And I think for the second straight game, he, like, in this one, it was Isaiah Stewart, and the last game was Bobby Portis. I. I think if I'm another team, I'm gonna. I'm gonna start poking and prodding. I'm gonna start trying to annoy the hell out of Jaylen Brown. I'm gonna see if I can get in his face. I'm gonna tell my guy who's my most demonstrative guy, go out there, celebrate in his face. Take a tech. I don't care if you take a tech. Go out there and needle him and see if you can bait him into a little bit of. A little too ISO. Because I think in both of these games, Jalen has responded to some sort of altercation by just going a little too one on one. Like, I think he wants to. I don't know, maybe gets too caught up in it. I. I don't know what it is, but he said after the game that he was not mentally. Like, it was not his best mentally focused game. You could see it just. He was, like, shaking his head after, like, running back on defense. Just wasn't fully there. Present in the moment. Now, again, it's amazing that Jalen is here because three years ago, maybe if he had this kind of game, it wouldn't have been 34 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists. It would have been 14 points. Like no rebounds, 1 assist, and 8 turnovers. The way he played in this game, the way like, mentally he was not fully engaged, it did remind me of those old games. But at the same time, he puts up these incredible numbers. So this is why I'm like torn. 34, 8 and 7 is a remarkable number. 34.87 a steal, three blocks, and four turnovers. Four turnovers. For a guy who played 40, 40 minutes and 29 a season high, handling the ball as much as he does, four turnovers is nothing. Cade Cunningham had three and 36 minutes. So another four minutes of play, he would have had another one. No one would blink at that. Derrick White had four turnovers in, in 38 minutes. It's, you know, it was, it happens now again, the four, all four of these turnovers were live ball turnovers. They were all just kind of not the best. And I just, you know, I'm hoping that Jalen can start responding to these little moments just by breathe, focus, and just do what you do best, because Jalen doing what he does best is, is again, MVP consideration type of thing. Now, to be fair, Jalen was spraying the ball and he did have seven assists. On a night where the Celtics shot 46% and 25 and a half percent from three, he still had seven assists. And that, that does say a lot. Like, this is not. This is not getting on Jalen. I'm just saying, like, I think, I think when Portis or, or Thomas. I'm not Thomas Stewart get into a little kind of one on one thing. I just think that Jalen gets a little too caught up in the one on one thing and just want to stick to the move the ball, make the right reads, keep your head on, keep focused, and don't get caught up in that stuff because the free throw stuff is mental. The free, the 7 of 14 from the line is mental. The types of turnovers that he had is mental. And he said it after the game. I'm not getting on him unfairly because he's the one who said it, that this was not his best mentally sharp game. He could have had all of these same numbers with maybe a few more assists, maybe a triple double for all we know. And, but just, just hitting the free throws, I mean, he missed seven free throws. The Celtics lost by seven. Just hitting a few of those free throws. Like, if he had hit three or four. That changes the dynamic of the game because of when they were taken, you know, so I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. I don't wanna, I don't go too hard because he's having an all NBA season. But these two things that have happened in the past two games, it does raise a question of do you get too caught up in that? Okay, what we'll do is we'll continue this. We'll have, we'll do more individual performances because I thought Namish Kada had a good game. Let's get into the bench scoring because the bench was, was not what it needed to be. And then the zone. I got a lot to talk about when we come back. And then my story about pie. The weirdest night of my life at TD Garden. It's all coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by Skims. When skims announced that they were making underwear for men, the reaction from my wife made perfect sense because she's been wearing skims for a long time and she said, you're gonna love them because I love mine. And this is going to be great. You're. And you know, she was right. She's, she's right most of the time. Most guys, you know, we, we do the same thing, right? Most of us will go to like a big box store and get like a case of boxer briefs for like 10 bucks and like, that's it. We're all set, we're good. It's time to be grown up. It's time to be a big boy and get something that feels good, that fits, right? So skims has these 5 inch stretch, which I like boxer briefs. 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I thought he was a big part of that and as part of the Celtics going zone he, he was I think the Celtics were able to put a run together to to get grab rebounds but Cato was part of this. The Celtics early on were giving up too many offensive rebounds. Cada started really rebounding and the Celtics went on a big run. Kid Also had two dribble drives, but which was weird. Like he just put the ball on the deck and you finished one layup and then finished one big monster dunk. So nice game from him. Also. Jordan Walsh started in this game, a weird game for Jordan. He's. He's become too important to have stupid files. And he had the first one in the first quarter. Like it was a stupid foul because he was on the left hand side of a right handed shooter. He was kind of out of position. He wasn't going to block the shot, but he still followed through and hit the left hand and put. I forget who it was on the line. And then on the rebound, he got called for an offensive a loose ball foul and had to sit. Now that brought in Hugo Gonzalez and Hugo did okay. He was kind of up and down again as well. But he, you know, he came in and did pretty well defending Cade Cunningham. He had one really nice box out early. I think it was second quarter. And then hit a three pointer. I forget exactly when that was, but that was, that was nice. But we didn't see a lot of Jordan Walsh and he didn't play down the stretch. And it's just one of those like. Okay, Joe even said after the game, Joe Missoula said we needed more offense down the stretch. Which tells you a little bit about, you know, where Jordan Walsh still is. But the, the bad fouls, he fouling is an issue for him. It's been an issue for him. He's got to stay on the floor. The part of why the Celtics went on that, that big kind of stretch, the five games in a row was because Jordan was playing a lot and playing great and getting those steals and getting out into transition. And he wasn't able to really do much of that because he had the two early fouls at the same time. Josh Minot played 13 minutes and really did nothing. He zero zero zeros all the way across the board. Zero points, 0 for 2 from 3. Jordan was 1 for 2 from 3. I think we're going to start seeing some of these three point percentages start to level off with these guys. So these wing players that were kind of playing over their heads. I don't know if we're seeing a little bit of settling down, but we'll see what happens. Friday's a big night. I think for this, this team. Friday is, you know, the Miami is going to be on a back to back. They play this kind of like funky offense. There's not a ton of pick and rolls. The Celtics have three days to prepare for this. They can watch a lot of film. They can. Game plan. This is an important game to kind of get back on track. Important one for Jordan Walsh. I think the, the defensive game plan is going to have to be on point against Miami. If they can shut that down and get back on track, that. That'll make these two losses to Milwaukee, into Detroit feel a little bit better. No shame in losing to Detroit, but it's just how they lost. Like, they could have won this game. They didn't play great against Milwaukee. They, they got kind of punked in that one, but they had an opportunity to win this game. They, I would say they probably should have won this game, but they, they just. The execution was poor and Jordan Ugo was okay, but, like, still not a ton out of him. Josh had to be better. Sam Houser played four minutes and left with a sprained ankle, so they couldn't get anything out of him. Baylor Scheireman was, you know, tried, you know, played 15 minutes but didn't give them anything offensively to give him some things defensively. But the, the, the, the individuals here are not playing the way they played in that five games, you know, five straight wins kind of mode. So they, they need to, they need to step up a little bit more. 14. Was it 47 to 14? The, the final bench scoring for Detroit's. Yeah, 47 to 14. That looks like a football blowout. The Celtics are not going to put up a ton of bench points, but where's Anthony Simons in this? He played. He didn't have a bad game, and Joe left him in because he said he liked what Simons was giving them offensively. But, oh, five from three. I don't know what it is if he's still not comfortable or what he, he has to settle down and start becoming a, like, he needs to be scoring 15 points himself off the bench, right? He. He needs to be that guy. Then you can get, hey, Ugo comes in and gives you, you know, he was a plus nine. He gave you five points. You need to get like five points here, five points there. If Anthony Simons is giving you 15 and the other three or four guys give you four or five points apiece, well, now you're looking at 30 points, 30 bench points. And getting outscored 47 to 30 is still not great, but it's better than 47 to 14. So Anthony needs to be that guy. He just, he has to be the one to settle down and lead that bench scoring. It's as simple as that. The Celtics played zone. They came according to Synergy Sports. They came into this game playing 16 possessions, 16 possessions in 20, 25 games, 16 possessions of zone. In this game alone. They played 17 according to synergy. And it was effective for a lot of, a lot of time. Like they had, I broke it down on Boston Sports Journal. They, they had, what is it, the first 10 possessions, six shots missed by the Pistons, three turnovers, and one of them, they end up getting fouled. So sit out of the first 10 possessions, nine empty trips, and that's like, that's huge. And then the next seven possessions, they, they did make four out of five shots. They turned it over once and then they got a foul. So it was less effective as the game went on. But I like the fact that they're trying some zone. This is good. This is. You got, you have to try and I think so many times playing zone, it becomes an ego thing in the NBA. Like, oh, we're too good to be playing zone. We. You know, you play man, if you want to play defense, you play, man, like, yeah, that's great. That's all great. But it's a tool that you can use and if you can play it effectively, then play zone. Who cares? Play some zone. Everybody goes gaga over, you know, Eric Spoelstra, he's such a great coach, he's such a, all of this stuff. And so much of his defense over the years has just been random zones for a long time. And like, he's a coaching genius. So why not use more zone? And against the Pistons, against a team that has questionable three point shooting? Yeah, if they're a team that loves to get into the paint and you're trying to pack the paint, zone every once in a while helps. You can't play a whole game of zone because the NBA is too good. You can't play a whole game of anything because the NBA is too good. But going zone for 2, 3 possessions until they figure it out, you, if you can win three possessions, that's gives you, that gives you the opportunity to win the game. Right? Close game, tight game. If all of a sudden you've, you've created these pockets of two or three empty possessions here, two or three empty possessions there, you. You give yourself a really good chance. So I'm glad that they played some zone. I'm glad that it was effective for at least a fair amount of it and I want to see more. But of course it's matchup dependent, so you can't just throw it out There, just throw it out there. You can't throw it out there against a good shooting team, like playing. Playing zone against Milwaukee, that's kind of like death, but against the Pistons, it can be effective. So work on it. Use it. All right, so we're 34 minutes into the podcast. Now I can tell my story about pie, which starts with me talking to Rick Mahorn. And those of you who are old enough like. Like me to remember the 80s, you know that Rick Mahorn is one of the great villains of Celtics history because play for the Bad Boy Pistons. He's, you know, he's a big dude that, you know, would hit and he would. He would do everything the. The Bad Boy Pistons did. And so I. I've been around, like, I've seen him before, but this is my one chance, like, I got a chance to actually talk to him pre game. And I told him the same thing I told Isaiah Thomas. Not Boston's Isaiah Thomas, the. The Detroit Isaiah Thomas. I've told them both the same thing. Now with. Listen, growing up in the 80s in New England, watching these Celtics, watching the battles that they had, I'm going to tell you, the greatest compliment that I can give you is that I hated you so much when I was growing up and Rick laughed and like, well, that means you loved me because. And I agree, I loved to hate him, and I love to hate the Pistons. And hate is a strong emotion because there's love, Love and hate, both two sides of the same coin. And so I told Rick that, you know, I hated him, but I ended up understanding that it was because I respected. Like, even when I was playing basketball, whenever I went up against an opponent that really gave me a hard time, and it was really, like, physical battle, I. I would. First person I go thank, you know, congratulate after the game, be like, you know, win or lose, and be like, that was awesome. That was awesome. You beat the hell out of me. We beat the hell out of each other. That was amazing. And so I respect. I respect those kinds of opponents. And so I respect. Ultimately, I still don't like Lambert. I still don't like the Pistons, the. The Bad Boy Pistons, but I have a ton of respect for. For Rick Mahorn. And so we had a good conversation. Which brings me to halftime of the game where we're sitting on press row, and my seat is two seats over from him doing the radio broadcast. And I get up, it's half time, I've done whatever work I'm doing, and then I get up to stretch my Legs a little bit. And he kind of like waves me over and he pulls open a paper plate with tin foil over it, aluminum foil over it, and has pumpkin pie. And it gives me a slice of pumpkin pie. And I'm like, this is nice. This is nice. I have Rick Mahorn gave me a piece of pie to eat at halftime. It's a sentence I've never ever thought I'd say in my wildest dreams. You would have told me as I'm watching the the 80s Celtics Pistons battles. Hey, John, in 40 years, that dude Rick Mahorn is going to give you a piece of pumpkin pie at halftime of a game. I just lose my mind. I don't know why, but it's freaking me out. It is freaking me out. It's such a weird night. Not. We had two dribble drives from Nish K down the middle of the lane and then Rick Mahorn is giving me pie in the. At the halftime. Like, what is going on? Am I going to be abducted by aliens? I'm glad I played the power ball. Maybe I'll hit the lottery because weird stuff is happening to me today. To say Rick Mah bad boy Pistons gave me a piece of pumpkin pie at halftime is just one of the all time surreal moments in a life of surreal moments because of this job that I get to do. That one really just really blew my mind because it's so random. It's so random. So I had to, I had to tell that story and I waited till the end because no one wanted to hear that at the beginning of the story, at the beginning of the podcast. All right, that's it. I'm just. It's on my Instagram. I don't know, I'm just. It's something I'm gonna think about from time to time. Be like, what? What is my life? What is this? Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching everybody. I'll be back all week. So podcast all week, podcast Friday night, podcast Sunday night. So seven days of podcasting this week. We're going to take it all into next week. There's a game. There's a game the following Friday. So basically two straight weeks of podcasting. It's all free. It's available everywhere. If you want to get it ad free, you can pay five bucks a month to join the everyday club@lockdown celtics.supercast.com 5 bucks a month or 50 for the year. So you get two months off if you pay ahead of time to get ad free audio access to the everyday club. Discord server bonus shows locked on merch members only stuff there so you can check that out. If we're on your Spotify wrapped then show us. Tag it on on Tag the Lockdown Podcast Network. You'll get a coupon a code for a free month. So do that and then I would love it if you share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day. Good morning crust. It's a great day to be a bread brother. Mornings are not my jam or jelly. Oh come on, stop loafing around. I just woke up feeling hollow inside. Just grab one of the new morning Uncrustable sandwiches like Bright Eyed Berry or up an apple filled with 12 grams of protein and tons of deliciousness crust. What are you eating? It's just granola. Not even yogurt. No crust, no fuss. Uncrust your mornings. The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live. 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Episode Title: Self-Inflicted: Boston Celtics TURNOVERS, missed shots, SQUANDER chance to beat Pistons
Host: John Karalis
Date: December 16, 2025
This episode centers on a frustrating and avoidable 112-105 Boston Celtics loss to the Detroit Pistons. Host John Karalis dissects how the Celtics' self-inflicted wounds—primarily turnovers, poor shooting, and mental lapses—overshadowed otherwise strong individual performances and wasted an opportunity to bounce back after a tough stretch. Discussion touches on Jalen Brown’s confounding game, Derrick White’s late efforts, bench performance issues, some deep-dive into the Celtics experimenting with zone defense, and a lighthearted, surreal halftime story involving Pistons legend Rick Mahorn and a piece of pie.
“Jalen gets fouled, misses two free throws... fourth quarter, those two free throws were the—he took four, so he was two for four ... he misses those two, come down, Cunningham hits a jump shot.” (08:10)
“Jalen was awesome, but he wasn’t awesome.” (18:55)
“If I’m another team, I’m gonna start poking and prodding. I’m gonna see if I can get in his face ... and see if you can bait him into a little bit of—a little too ISO." (21:16)
“That looks like a football blowout.” (32:25)
“It felt like every turnover the Celtics had led to points... They had six turnovers in the fourth quarter alone.”
— John Karalis (06:48)
“Too many brain farts in this one, and that was one of them.”
— John Karalis, on Brown biting on a fake in crunch time (07:49)
“Jalen… was not mentally—like, it was not his best mentally focused game. You could see it. He was, like, shaking his head after, like, running back on defense. Just wasn’t fully there, present in the moment.”
— John Karalis (21:55)
“If they’re not hitting shots, they’re not going to make up for it in a lot of other ways. And you gotta be almost perfect in every other phase for the Celtics to win without making three-pointers.”
— John Karalis (15:12)
“Anthony Simons... he needs to be scoring 15 points himself off the bench, right? He needs to be that guy.”
— John Karalis (32:02)
"So many times playing zone, it becomes an ego thing in the NBA... But it’s a tool that you can use and if you can play it effectively, then play zone. Who cares?”
— John Karalis (35:12)
“You would have told me as I’m watching the 80s Celtics–Pistons battles, ‘Hey John, in 40 years, that dude Rick Mahorn is going to give you a piece of pumpkin pie at halftime of a game.’ I’d just lose my mind.” (38:37)
This episode is a valuable listen for Celtics fans wanting an insider’s breakdown of a loss that was “the Celtics just beating themselves.” Strong in statistical and tactical analysis, the podcast is made more memorable by Karalis’ directness and endearing storytelling.
For fans seeking:
This episode delivers on all counts.
[End of Summary]