BOSTON — The Celtics haven’t had too many losses through 30 games this season.
They’ve only had one true embarrassment.
That came Monday night in Chicago when the team with the worst record in the NBA knocked Boston from its perch in a humbling, 108-85 rout.
The Celtics were without Kyrie Irving that night as he rested a sore quad. But the players and coaches were well aware that the struggles went beyond not having one player. While the intention was to put any frustrations from that night behind them quickly as they headed into Wednesday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets, the Celtics did so with the understanding that any night could be a repeat of that night in Chicago if they start to take anything they’ve done thus far this season for granted.
“We’re always playing a new game so you have to have a short memory,” said Celtics center Aron Baynes, who bounced back in Wednesday’s 124-118 triumph with 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting. “That’s something we’ve been able to do. We don’t want to have to be having too many short memories because we’ve got to put the right effort out there every single time. We didn’t do that one game and it hurt us.
“It’s one of those things where we don’t want to have to learn from that mistake too often. One time should be enough. We should be able to go out there and bring the right energy from start to finish from the start of the season.”
The Celtics did that — on the offensive end, at least — on Wednesday as they went from their lowest scoring output of the season on Monday to their highest on 59.5 percent shooting, despite playing without starting power forward Al Horford.
“It’s just our ability to respond, I think, that’s probably the biggest thing,” said Irving, who returned to the lineup with 33 points on 12-of-19 shooting. “Being able to do it without letting the same emotions, or the same thoughts, from the last game carry over into the next one. Just moving on, regardless of how anyone played, individually or us as a team.
“We watch film. We do a great job of that. [Celtics coach] Brad [Stevens] addresses us and it’s our job as professionals to go out there and hold ourselves to a high standard, and hold each other to it.”
The Celtics were far from satisfied Wednesday, despite the victory, because they allowed Denver’s Gary Harris to score 36 points an Jamal Murray 28 while also giving up 20 offensive rebounds.
“It wasn’t as good as we wanted it,” Baynes said after the game. “We didn’t play within ourselves defensively, or within Brad’s system, for large parts of the game. Luckily, we made enough plays at the other end.”
Baynes credited a lot of those plays to Irving, who found Baynes for a short jumper for a two-point lead with 3:22 left in the third quarter after the Nuggets had rallied from a 13-point deficit to tie it. The Celtics went back up 12 early in the fourth and kept it at least a two-possession game the rest of the way.
“I was just trying to find myself in the right spot,” Baynes said. “We have Kyrie out there, and he draws so much attention that he’s going to find you in the right spot most of the time.”
Baynes said the team was more aggressive on Wednesday, and played at a quicker pace.
“Night in and night out, we don’t know what’s going to work,” he said. “But if we play it with pace, and we play it within Brad’s system, it usually puts us in the right spot.”
The Celtics take a 24-6 record into Friday night’s game against the Utah Jazz. “Obviously we had the clunker the other night,” the coach said, “but thus far through 30 games we’ve been pretty darn consistent in finding a way [to pull out wins].
“We haven’t always played our best on both ends. We have to get better. But that’s been the one consistent part.”