There’s not many people who didn’t have this game between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers circled on their calendar as a must watch game on Thursday night in Boston.

Five-hours before tipoff, it was announced that LeBron James (ankle) and Anthony Davis (hip and bilateral Achilles tendinopathy) were to be sidelined, officially ruling them out of the game and leaving fans disappointed on both sides.

This unfortunately caused the Celtics to play with their food, not respecting their opponent and ultimately being outplayed on both ends of the court by the Lakers on a night their two superstars chose to sit out.

We’ve seen the Celtics play down to a lesser opponent in the past, but it was assumed that was an old habit left in the rearview mirror as the season progresses on. It was an all around effortless performance right from the start of the game.

Here’s what Jaylen Brown said about it after the game:

“We have to come out and play basketball each and every night. We don’t want to build bad habits. We want to play the game the right way. We want to guard, defend, respect our opponents. And that’s stuff you have to do on a night in, night out basis and we didn’t do that tonight from top to bottom. And as a leader on this team, I take responsibility for it. We got to be better.”

The Celtics opened the game committing nine turnovers and didn’t defend on the other end of the court. They were down as much as 11-points in the first quarter and then 14-points at halftime.

It was effortless defense, but it was also a poor shooting night on the other end for Boston, as they only hit 30.4% from behind the arc at the half compared to 52% by Los Angeles. Unable to match this production dug Boston into holes throughout the game.

The Celtics finished the game shooting 42.3% from the field and 33.3% from behind the arc and made 30 assists on 41 made baskets while only getting to the free throw line seven times compared to 26 for the Lakers.

Follow us on Twitter @CelticsFiles

Follow me on Twitter @Trombino20

Photo Credit: Elsa, Getty Images