Celtics 146, Wizards 101
BRIAN KEEFE: It's painfully obvious we didn't meet the standard that we want to play at. Our competitive juice, I thought we made a little bit of a run there at the end of the second quarter, but the second half was not representative of what we want to be like and who we have been lately. We have to own that, and we've got to buckle down and get better and get ready for the next game, but that was not up to our standard tonight.
Q. Given that there were a lot of injuries and giving players opportunities for bigger roles, how do you explain the lack of energy, the lack of effort?
BRIAN KEEFE: Don't have the answer for that. That's something we're going to have to dig into. I think we all have to own that, myself included. All of us together, we're in this together. Take a look at where we faltered. But that was painfully obvious that that didn't reach the standard of our play.
It's something we can address when we look at it tomorrow, and get back to work and we'll be better on Saturday.
Q. After a night like this, would you consider wholesale changes to the rotation to make a point that you want a certain standard met game in, game out?
BRIAN KEEFE: The problem is we've been actually reaching that pretty much lately, and tonight we had a step back. We have to reevaluate what we're doing. Now we have to look at ourselves in the mirror as we always do here. We're never pointing fingers. We never talk about people not being in the lineup. We come here to play, and we didn't have that necessary force that we have been playing with lately.
Q. When you say you "didn't meet the standards," is that speaking about effort?
BRIAN KEEFE: We have a certain expectation of how we want to play, and I think we have seen this lately, that we can play physical, we can defend, we can disrupt people. We can really move the ball and share it when we play with a certain pace. I didn't see those things out there in the game.
You can call that what it is, but it's just the way we play, and I didn't see our identity of how we play basketball, and that's not acceptable.
Q. After a loss like tonight, what's the proper timeline you think for acknowledging that it was bad before washing your hands of it and getting ready for the next game?
BRIAN KEEFE: Well, these ones we should all be upset, so you use this as fuel.
Q. What has Will shown you over these past couple games, getting a more extended run, and what do you want him to keep working on?
BRIAN KEEFE: He actually was one of the guys that was out there bringing it. You could see his offensive rebounding, his cutting, his ability to make plays. I thought he gave us obviously a little burst when he was in the game tonight. He's still a growing and evolving player, but he's doing the right things on the court.
Q. Same for Jamir with his first start tonight?
BRIAN KEEFE: Yeah, we wanted to give Jamir the chance, and I thought he actually did some really positive things early in the game defensively and then even offensively, getting us moving and some of the things he was doing off ball was helpful. We like where Jamir is at, and he's going to be a good player for us.
Q. You're down seven entering halftime and then things unraveled from there. What did you see in the third and fourth quarters as the game slipped away? Was it energy, lack of communication, execution?
BRIAN KEEFE: You've got to give them credit a little bit, too. They made some shots. We had some turnovers, though, playing in crowds. They had some runouts.
It just kind of compiled. That was what we weren't pleased with is we usually would have a good run to fight back like we did in the first half. We didn't have that edge to get back into the game to make one final push.
Q. Kyshawn went 5 of 7 from the field but only one shot in the second half. Why the low shot attempts for him?
BRIAN KEEFE: Nothing to do with him. Just the flow of the game. That stuff happens. That's normal stuff.
Q. What do you think needs to change in preparation for y'all to have a better second half going down the stretch?
BRIAN KEEFE: We have been doing that, so we've just got to remember what we're capable of. We actually have been playing good basketball here, won two or three out of our last five games. Not tonight. We are playing better stretches, more consistent. We didn't have it tonight; we have to acknowledge that. We have to look at ourselves, and we have to get better.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports