Celtics leave fans green around the gills, but manage to extend Pistons’ losing streak to 28 games

The feeling was more relief, not celebration. The Celtics walked off the floor Thursday after being pushed to overtime by a team that hasn’t won in two months, knowing they had staved off embarrassment and realizing it took their best second-half effort to prevail.

The Detroit Pistons were understandably desperate, the talk of the NBA because of a record-breaking losing streak. They punched the Celtics first and often before their NBA-best opponent finally awoke, and used some clutch plays from Kristaps Porzingis and Derrick White to win, 128-122, in overtime.

Coming back from a 19-point halftime deficit, the Celtics rallied and then held off a determined Pistons club which has lost 28 consecutive games, tied for the most in NBA history. (The Pistons can break the record against Toronto on Saturday.)

They didn’t play like a team that hasn’t won since Oct. 28, attacking the paint, grabbing offensive rebounds, and hitting threes against a Celtics team that looked exhausted and distracted after a successful West Coast road trip.

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When Detroit’s Jalen Duren tipped in a miss and the Pistons led, 66-45, in the second quarter, boos were audible at TD Garden. The home team looked flat and erratic, and something would have to change at halftime.

In the Boston locker room, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla showed White video of his first-half miscues. The guard also changed shoes after slipping multiple times in the first half. The result was 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting in the second half and overtime.

When Mazzulla saw this game looming, especially as Detroit’s losing streak continued, he envisioned one of the tougher games of the season.

“Everybody comes into a game like this and it’s like, ‘Oh, the Celtics are playing the Pistons, so they should win the game.’ They look at the record and create this emotional mindset that this is easy,” Mazzulla said. “You watch five or six Detroit Pistons games and you see how hard they play and how talented they are, and just because they’re a team [that’s on a losing streak] doesn’t mean they haven’t been in 10 close games and could have won if the ball bounced their way.

“Each loss they’re playing harder because they want to win. And it’s going to happen.”

Kristaps Porzingis, who sparked impressive wins over the Kings and Lakers, also dominated after halftime, scoring 29 of his 35 points. That included the clinching bucket, when he resembled a 7-foot-3-inch wide receiver, catching a lead pass from Jayson Tatum for a thunderous dunk and a 123-117 lead with 45.2 seconds left.

Finally, the Pistons, who rallied late in the fourth quarter to force overtime on six consecutive points from Jaden Ivey, were done. Ivey and Duren combined for 13 of Detroit’s season-high 19 offensive rebounds, as it stayed close with 31 second-chance points.

“They came out really aggressive, really desperate, and it’s tough to play against a team like that,” Porzingis said. “They almost have nothing to lose. They’ve already been losing so many games in a row and what better chance to come out and look strong against one of the best teams in the league. They did that in the first half. We knew it was going to have to be a war in the second half against them. We gave everything we had and we were able to put them away.”

Playing on a sprained left ankle he said remains swollen, Tatum shot just 11 for 31, but dished out 10 assists along with 7 rebounds and 5 steals as the Celtics held Detroit to 36.8 percent shooting after it shot 61.4 in the first half.

Mazzulla stressed to his players at morning shootaround that this would be a difficult game because of Detroit’s desperation. He was right.

“To their credit, they are a young, athletic team,” Tatum said. “They put pressure on us every time a shot went up. They did a good job of that. Everything that could have went wrong essentially went wrong in that first half. We were still motivated going into the second half. We knew we had to stop turning the ball over. We kind of picked up our intensity on the defensive end and that gave us life and energy on the offensive end.”

Jaylen Brown sat out Thursday with a back bruise after his Monday collision with LeBron James. With Tatum playing 43 minutes and the Celtics exerting so much energy to edge the Pistons, they will have to muster up enough guile to come back Friday against the Raptors.

“We learned more from [the Detroit] game than we did probably from playing the four games on the West Coast trip,” Mazzulla said. “It’s an opportunity to build a mindset and toughness. We had everything to gain; how about the stress and level of anxiety you felt in that arena today? To me, we gained a ton from the game.”

Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at gary.washburn@globe.com. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.