Celtics star Jayson Tatum admitted that they must take care of the ball in a better way in the aftermath of their loss to the Timberwolves.

Celtics' Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday, and Jaylen Brown all looking disappointed, with Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards hyped up

The Boston Celtics have looked every part of the genuine championship contender every pundit had them pegged in the early goings of the season. Jayson Tatum and the Celtics have put up the best offense in the league to this point, but they were going to face a huge, early test in their season on Monday night when they square off against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team that has posted the best defensive rating thus far.

And the Timberwolves truly put the Celtics’ league-best offense to the test. The Celtics ended up shooting a paltry 39.1 percent from the field and 28.2 percent from beyond arc, forced to take difficult shots on plenty of occasions with Rudy Gobert, Jaden McDaniels, and Anthony Edwards being especially suffocating on the defensive end.

In the end, Jayson Tatum and the Celtics suffered their first loss of the season, a 114-109 defeat in overtime to the Timberwolves from which they can derive plenty of lessons from to apply as the season progresses. And one such lesson, according to Tatum, is that they must be able to take care of the basketball in a much better way seeing how it cost them on Monday night.

Tatum ready to confront championship expectations

“Yeah, just had way too many turnovers. I gotta do better, we all gotta do better,” Tatum said following the game, laughing after Jared Weiss of The Athletic asked the Celtics star about what went wrong for the team’s execution on offense during crunch time.

Jayson Tatum himself had six turnovers on the night; he threw a bad pass with 2:15 left in the fourth quarter, and he also overshot a pass to Al Horford four possessions later with a chance to take the lead with around 30 seconds left on the clock. Jrue Holiday also had a costly turnover in the possession prior to the Horford giveaway. And then in overtime, Tatum coughed the ball yet again, and then Jaylen Brown also joined the party when he was guilty of a charging foul.

The Celtics finished the game with fewer turnovers than the Timberwolves, but the timing of their giveaways were crucial; these mistakes simply could not happen with the game on the line, and on Monday night, Boston learned that lesson the hard way.