``Difficult trip,'' Kevin Garnett said after losses to the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers. ``Just the win over Sacramento. Totally not the way we usually play Basketball. I thought we didn't share the ball as much as we could. I thought we took a step back on this trip. Especially (in Tuesday night's 91-86 loss to the Blazers), we didn't take advantage of (Brandon) Roy not playing. But it is a game and it is a road trip that we should sit back and learn from.

``I'm sure we will analyze a lot of things that didn't go right and make some adjustments and try to move on.''

Paul Pierce had 28 points in the finale against the Trail Blazers, but he had to go one-on-the-world at the end. The crisp Celtics offense turned soggy.

``It's definitely a disappointing trip for us to lose three games,'' Pierce said. ``Definitely we're still a work in progress. We're still trying to get better, still trying to learn ourselves. I mean, we're a different team from last year. We have different players coming off the bench who have different roles.

``It's just about us being consistent with our roles and understanding what type of team we are first, a defensive team that can play offense. We have to just get back to that. We're definitely disappointed, so hopefully we can go back home and bounce back.''

The Celtics are coming home a different team than the one that left for the trip riding a 19-game winning streak.

``It humbles us,'' Rajon Rondo said. ``I don't know if we were getting a big head or anything, but I'm sure it humbles us now losing three out of four on the road. We take pride in winning on the road. We just didn't come out with the right focus in each of the (losses). We had a lead in each of the games, but we didn't execute down the stretch. We didn't take care of the ball, and we lost our focus when we had those leads. We have to keep our composure. Before when we got leads we kept them.

``Now when teams make runs on us, we got our heads down and we didn't stick together and keep our composure.''

According to Ray Allen, the fault lies within.

``It's disheartening when we don't play the way we're capable of playing based on just mental mistakes,'' Allen said. ``Our execution has been a little off and a little sideways, so we've got to work on that and improve that. I think there's things we need to do to get better. When you lose, obviously it's kind of disheartening. You want to do what you've got to do to get better as a team. But we see where we need to get better. All three times we had chances to win. We just have to get better. You just have to deal with it and know that it's going to be tough.

``Every team goes through some adversity, and that's what we're facing now.''

The bench suffered a little exposure on the trip.

``Of course we've always got room for improvement,'' reserve Eddie House said. ``The streak was great, and I think the media put more hype on it and put more of a significance on it than we did. But, hey, we came out here and we planned on sweeping it, but that got X'd out immediately the first game. We tried to save face by winning three out of the four, but that didn't work. I look at myself. I think you can't point fingers.

``We've all got to step up and be accountable for ourselves. I think I have to do better out there.''

- sbulpett@bostonherald.com