Playing the Warriors can sometimes be as much an exercise in restraint as anything else. There are so many open shots and available fast break opportunities that it can be incredibly enticing to settle for the first good thing that presents itself. Enticing as it may be, it can also be a sucker’s bet if you’re not careful.

The Celtics, who play such a tightly controlled form of basketball, were easy marks most of the night, especially after dominating the first quarter.

In retrospect, the first 12 minutes may have been the Celtics’ undoing in a 103-99 loss. (Recap.) Playing one of their best quarters of the season, the Celtics destroyed Golden State and took a 35-22 lead after one. But while those easy looks remained there all night, the Celtics never settled down and played their game, with 24 turnovers serving as one of the unfortunate results.

Instead, the C’s played way too fast and way too much like the Warriors wanted them to play at right around 100 possessions. The Celtics average a tick over 91. As good as the Celtics defense is, one of the ways to attack it is to beat them in transition and not give them a chance to set up their defense.

This is the second time Boston has succumbed to the temptations of playing run and gun. The Phoenix Suns performed a similar helter-skelter number on the Celtics earlier in the season, although that game was played at a pedestrian pace compared to Monday night’s sprint.

It’s the second time this season the Celtics have lost consecutive games, and not surprisingly, both instances have come on the road during a stretch of back-to-back games.

Here are three more things we can take from this game:

REMAIN CALM, ALL IS (MOSTLY) WELL

Players change, eras blend, but if there’s been a constant for the Celtics this century it’s an odd inability to win at Golden State. The Warriors’ style – fast and athletic – is a bad matchup in general for the Celtics. Add in the extra boost that bad teams sometimes get when they play at home against elite teams and the loss, while frustrating, is probably no more than a blip.

There is a real chance that the Celtics could end this trip, which began with so much promise on Christmas Day, with three straight defeats after they play Phoenix on Wednesday. But that doesn’t mean it was a wasted experience.

There will probably be comparisons to last season’s west coast swing, which many pointed to as the beginning of the unraveling for that Celtics team. There is, however, ample evidence that the two turbulent trips are mostly unrelated.

For starters, the Celtics started that trip with a disappointing loss to the Lakers, which set a bad mood for the rest of the trip. For another, that Celtics team was healthy and intact, and this one is obviously missing a key component in Paul Pierce.

There’s a reason why winning on the road is difficult in the NBA. The Celtics’ blistering 13-1 record away from TD Garden was due to even out a little.

Still, the big takeaway from this roadtrip was the Celtics’ performance against the Magic, especially the way in which Rajon Rondo responded.

Like the Magic, the Warriors tried to employ the box and no one defense on Rondo, where they sagged a defender way off in the paint. Rondo has learned a few tricks to combat that gimmick D.

Against the Magic, he continued to attack even with a shot-blocker like Dwight Howard protecting the rim. Against the Warriors, Rondo willingly took the open jumper when he wasn’t beating Golden State in transition.

For the Celtics, the regular season is a process, not a destination. The key part of that process (along with staying healthy) is getting Rondo ready for the playoffs.

On that score, at least, this trip has been full of heady lessons for the young point guard, which will only serve him well come the spring.

Read More

Blogs

• Chris Wilcox and JaJuan Johnson may not be Kareem Abdul-Jabar but they were pretty good Sunday
• Kevin Garnett on Rajon Rondo: ‘He had a bit of rough day’ (before his triple-double)

Audio on Demand

• JaJuan Johnson with Grande & Max post-win
• Grande & Max with Doris Burke

Columns

• The Rajon Rondo conundrum
• Sun begins to set on Celtics, Lakers

Tickets

02/15/2012

Boston Celtics vs Detroit Pistons - TD Garden, Boston, MA
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02/29/2012

Boston Celtics vs Milwaukee Bucks - TD Garden, Boston, MA
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03/2/2012

Boston Celtics vs New Jersey Nets - TD Garden, Boston, MA
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THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF PERK

Whether he knew it or not, Kevin Garnett’s candid response after the Clippers game – that Kendrick Perkins needed to chill out at times on the court – may wind up working against Perk.

The demonstrative big man has always had his problems with officials, mainly because of his reactions to calls that don’t go his way. Now opponents are zeroing in on Perkins, and like Chris Kaman before him, Ronny Turiaf seemed to work his way under Perkins’ skin.

Turiaf is a world-class agitator. It’s one of the ways he’s become an effective big man off the bench who has carved out a career for himself. Perkins needs to find a way to block all that out and just play.

His quest is a noble one. Perkins feels that he hasn’t been accorded the kind of respect that he deserves, and he has a point. He has become not only a skilled low-post defender, but also an effective offensive player. That’s to his enormous credit because he is a terrific example of a self-made player picked at the very end of the first round on pure potential.

It seemed that Perkins had turned an enormous corner during last season’s playoffs, not only playing Howard as well as any other player in the league, but also mostly ignoring the histrionics of Joakim Noah and Brad Miller in the first round.

There is a target on Perkins now, and like Rondo, he has the rest of the regular season to master that aspect of his game to match the other notable improvements that he has made.

IN CAUTIOUS PRAISE OF TONY ALLEN

We have been down this road many, many times before with Tony Allen. Throughout his star-crossed career, Allen has shown sporadic spasms of brilliance, mixed with head-scratching periods of inertia.

So, it comes with no small parts of restraint to say that Allen’s return to the Celtics lineup has been nothing short of solid. Yes, Allen still mixes the sublime with the bizarre, but on the whole the good has far outweighed the bad.

His latest comeback is even more intriguing because when the season started one would have been hard-pressed to imagine a scenario in which Allen would have even been given the chance to contribute, let alone excel.

The Marquis Daniels acquisition seemed to signal the beginning of the end of Allen’s days in a Celtics uniform because not only does Daniels do many of the same things that Allen does, he does them in a far more efficient and cerebral manner.

But here’s T.A. again, with yet another chance, this time because of a fluke wrist injury to Daniels, while Pierce’s knee injury has given him a shot in the starting lineup. Allen is shooting over 50 percent, rebounding like a power forward and distributing like a guard. Even his turnovers are within reason.

The turnovers reared their ugly head against the Warriors (he had a team-high five), but even with those he was still a team-best +7 in 28 minutes. It remains to be seen what role Allen will have once Daniels returns, but for now, he is an integral, and effective, part of the Celtics rotation.