The Boston Celtics lost another game on their home court, 114-112, to the Houston Rockets on Monday night. The Celtics had a chance to win, but they blew their ninth fourth quarter lead of the season and lost the game.

There was a bit of miscommunication during the final two defensive inbound plays on the Celtics part, leading to Houston scoring the game-winning points.

The first play happened from the left side of the court with 11.8 seconds on the clock right between the substitution box and the visitors coaching box.

It was Fred VanVleet on the inbound pass with Luke Kornet and Kristaps Porzingis near the top of the arc defending Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson respectively.

As the play develops, Thompson maneuvered back towards VanVleet while Sengun worked around Kornet for a wide open, clear pathway to the hoop. Porzingis followed Thompson and left no coverage under the basket.

The second inbound pass that caused trouble for Boston happened from the same spot, just on the other side of the court. It was VanVleet inbounding again, this time to Thompson, who received the pass right behind the arc.

Just seconds prior to the pass, Kornet was receiving instructions to switch with Jaylen Brown, but the call came in late, forcing both Kornet and Brown to be out of place and gave Thompson the space he needed to make the game-winning shot.

After the game, head coach Joe Mazzulla took the blame for the loss, saying he didn’t do a good enough job to put the team in a position to win the game. Whether it’s a lack of preparation or miscommunication at the end, Mazzulla said it was on him.

“Those last two plays are on me, those are my fault. I didn’t put us in the best matchups, I saw the play they were trying to run, I tried to change the matchups and put our guys in a tough spot. So that’s a tough one because I thought our guys did everything to win the game and they put us in position to win it and I didn’t help them at the end. Both those plays, 100% on me.”

“We just didn’t have the matchups right. They showed us the play and I tried to get the best possible people on the play… I did it too late and put our guys in a tough spot.”

Since they started the season 20-5, the Celtics are 11-10 and 8-6 over the last 14 games. The team changed the way they’re playing on both ends of the court and it seems to be attributed to Kristaps Porzingis being integrated back to the lineup.

By doing so, it seems to have impacted the entire team from the rotation to who the way Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown play. It hasn’t been a smooth transition and Mazzulla needs to figure things out quickly.

The NBA Trade Deadline is around the corner and it could see Boston being active to strengthen their wing depth.

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Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran, The Boston Globe, Getty Images