BOSTON — Jaylen Brown shouldered the blame for the Boston Celtics’ 112-105 loss to the Detroit Pistons even after scoring 34 points Monday night.

“I’ve got to do better to get my team over the hump,” Brown said. “In my mind, I didn’t have my best game tonight, so that’s on me.”

Brown sank 13 of 25 field goal attempts but went just 7-for-14 from the free-throw line. His two missed free throws with 2:01 left prevented the Celtics from pulling closer than 106-102. Late in the fourth quarter, he also committed a turnover and had a costly foul with his team trying to complete a comeback. With 2:24 remaining, Brown fouled Tobias Harris with 2.4 seconds left on the shot clock after biting for an up-fake inside the paint.

“Especially in the fourth quarter, just some mindset plays,” Brown said. “Foul. Staying down on the shot fake. Had a turnover in the fourth and then just too many missed free throws. Just mentality-wise, mindset-wise, I needed to be more for my team. I wasn’t tonight.”

In addition to his scoring, Brown piled up eight rebounds, seven assists, three blocks and a steal. He could have finished with more assists, but the Celtics shot just 10-of-39 on 3-point attempts, missing several times after he set up open teammates.

Derrick White believed his teammate was too hard on himself.

“I think that’s kind of what makes him special,” White said. “He had 30-something and still wants to do better for us, and so that’s what makes him special. He’s probably his toughest critic, and we know that he’s going to bounce back and continue to do special things for us. And so, obviously, this loss isn’t on him. It’s on all of us, and we got his back, but that’s just kind of the guy he is in this and why we love playing with him.”

While controlling the first half with 18 points and five assists, Brown attacked the big and physical Pistons relentlessly. When he could, he beat them all the way to the rim. When he couldn’t, he pulled up for a jump shot or found an open teammate.

Though they couldn’t find their outside shots, the Celtics put on a midrange show over the first two quarters, making 13 of their 18 attempts from that distance, according to Cleaning the Glass. Brown went 7-of-10 from the midrange in the half, with some extremely difficult makes, like a spinning fadeaway over Isaiah Stewart.

PUT IT ON EM JB ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/rTMsRGyPH2

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 16, 2025

Thanks to Brown’s big half, the Celtics took a 57-53 lead into halftime. However, they fell behind late in the third quarter and couldn’t quite catch the Pistons in the fourth. Cade Cunningham (32 points) drained two big shots inside the final two minutes to hold them off.

“He’s elite,” White said. “He’s really good at basketball, and his size, and he shot it well today, too. I think every game is going to be difficult trying to slow him down, and obviously, he made some big plays on the stretch.”

The Celtics were thrashed on the defensive glass in each of their previous two contests against the Pistons. For three quarters, Boston kept the issue somewhat in check — at least relative to those two games. But two minutes into the fourth, the Celtics gave up two consecutive offensive rebounds. After Harris eventually cashed in with a floater, Joe Mazzulla called timeout and expressed his displeasure to his players.

Despite that moment, Mazzulla thought his team handled Detroit’s physicality well.

“I thought we answered the call,” Mazzulla said. “I think they’re one of the bigger, more physical teams in the league. I think we’re right there. Obviously, there’s four or five possessions, some of the live-ball turnovers, but I liked our mental toughness. I liked our physical toughness throughout the game. I think what we can learn from this one is continuing to maintain those things and then just have our execution on both ends of the floor. So, I thought we met that call tonight.”

Mazzulla recognized the importance of doing that against the burly Pistons, who rank second in offensive rebound rate and third in opposing turnover percentage. He pulled Josh Minott out of the game late in the first quarter, after he allowed Stewart to rip the ball out of his hands and score a putback dunk.

“Josh is, as we’ve talked about before, he’s learning to play different positions,” Mazzulla said. “He’s not necessarily a five-man, but he’s going to be matched up with different guys. But games like this, I thought tonight had a playoff-type feel to it, and games like this call for another level of physicality that we have to be able to get to. So, it’s just teaching moments there, and I think more times throughout the game, we’ve met that challenge, and we have to continue to do so.”

Brown agreed the Celtics were up to the challenge against Detroit’s physicality.

“We meet the physicality,” Brown said, “and I think that’s what we did tonight. I think my team did enough. I gotta be better down the stretch. We gotta be better down the stretch. Definitely a game that got away from us, that got away from me. We’ll watch the film and be ready for the next one.”

Brown was involved in one of the game’s most physical plays. With 4:58 left in the third quarter, he took offense to some contact from Stewart while the two were fighting for a rebound. During a stoppage for the officials to review the action, Brown shared some words with Stewart while the big man was standing in front of Detroit’s bench. Brown and Stewart were hit with technical fouls for their parts in the exchange.

Jaylen Brown hit Isaiah Stewart with his own emote after double techs 😭💀 pic.twitter.com/2208ijvWlf

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 16, 2025

“It was just having fun,” Brown said when asked about the gesture he used in Stewart’s direction. “That was it. Just having fun. I think Stewart is a nice guy.”

Brown scored 7 points over the rest of the quarter. When it ended, he appeared to approach Mazzulla to ask to stay on the court to open the fourth quarter, even though he had played the entire third. Brown finished with a season-high 40 minutes.

Harris’ third-chance basket put Boston down 91-83 early in the fourth quarter, but the Celtics had a run left. A couple of minutes later, Anfernee Simons drove past Ausar Thompson for a tough finish to cut the deficit to six. On Boston’s next possession, White followed up with a transition 3-pointer from Payton Pritchard to pull the Celtics within 93-90. White scored 14 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter.

The Celtics just couldn’t close out the comeback. Javonte Green, who started his career in Boston, had two big steals down the stretch against his former team.

“Obviously, you want to win every game, but that’s kind of unrealistic,” White said. “And like I said, they’re a really good team, and they made plays, and they do a lot of things to challenge their opponents. So, obviously, there’s things we’re going to watch film about and want to get better and improve with, but the physicality and the mentality, mindset, I think we did a really good job with them.”