Celtics
The Celtics defeated the Trail Blazers comfortably on Sunday, as their Stay Ready Group pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 124-107 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Jaylen Brown led all Celtics scorers with 26 points and tallied his 10,000th point as a member of the Celtics. He became the 15th Celtic to reach the 10,000 mark, and (almost certainly not intentionally, but notably nonetheless) he did it with a swooping layup with his left hand.
“It definitely does [mean a lot],” Brown said afterward. “Don’t want to skip over that. It’s been a great journey, even though the journey is still going, just take the moments out to just appreciate all the work, the hard work, the effort that has gone into even getting to this point. It’s been ups, it’s been downs, things haven’t gone my way, things have, and you know, here we are. So I’m incredibly grateful and I’m looking forward to the future.”
Brown noted that his career wasn’t always as smooth as it is now.
“But for the day ones, the JB fans who’ve stayed in my corner since day one, I feel that love and I like to just show that love right back,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of people here in Boston who have supported my career, my journey, and I’m grateful for that. That encouraged me to just keep getting better. That encourages me to keep improving and proving the naysayers wrong and just keep leveling up.”
2. Robert Williams is out for the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right knee in November, but he was with the team in Boston on Sunday and received a big ovation from fans when he was welcomed back to TD Garden along with Dalano Banton and Malcolm Brogdon.
Williams’ lack of a tribute video felt like a pretty significant slight … except Williams himself asked not to be honored, according to The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach.
Still, Williams waved at fans during his enthusiastic welcome, and he seemed thrilled to see his former Celtics teammates.
For his part, Joe Mazzulla just said that he saw and greeted Williams in the hallway at one of the Hawks games. All in all, the return of a fan favorite came with very little fanfare.
3. The Celtics’ bench unit got to finish the game again, and this time, they were excellent. Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Oshae Brissett, Svi Mykhailiuk and Xavier Tillman helped the Celtics win the fourth quarter 31-22 after nearly blowing a double-digit lead against the Kings on Friday, highlighted by this dish from Pritchard to Brissett.
A reporter asked Mazzulla after the game about Pritchard’s mindset that there is no such thing as garbage time.
“It starts with them,” Mazzulla said. “Payton leads the charge on that mindset, but Oshae just loves competing at a high level. All those guys do. And I think when those guys are in the game, there’s no drop off from the execution and the effort that we’re trying to play with, so it’s a credit to them.”
Another credit to the bench: Derrick White played just 31 minutes and Brown played 30. Kristaps Porzingis finished with 27, while Jrue Holiday and Al Horford played 21.
4. Pritchard finished with 20 efficient points on 9-for-13 shooting to go with eight assists and a pair of rebounds. His ability to lead the bench unit offensively, create opportunities for himself and others and put up rotation-player numbers has been a really nice boost for the Celtics as they try to get fully right before the postseason. Rather than giving up a bunch of justifiable-but-ugly losses with their starters out, the Celtics are building on a lead in the Eastern Conference standings that was already insurmountable weeks ago.
“He takes pride in situational basketball, and he takes pride in finding any way to impact the game, and I think that’s big for us,” Mazzulla said.
5. Sam Hauser bounced back from a 1-for-18 performance from the floor in Friday’s win with a 4-for-6 evening Sunday, including 2-for-4 from behind the arc. Even with that horrendous shooting performance pulling his numbers down, he is up to 46.3 percent from behind the arc over his last 10 games.
6. Banton appears to be enjoying his role with the Blazers – he finished with a game-high 28 points, including 15 in the first half, and dished out nine assists. He scored in a variety of ways – operating out of the pick-and-roll, spotting up from behind the arc, and working his way to the rim in the paint.
Banton has the benefit of the green light that lottery-bound teams give to essentially anyone playing significant minutes – he finished a relatively inefficient 11-for-23 from the floor. Still, he appears to be taking advantage of an opportunity and seems likely to have earned himself a closer look in Portland next season, which is nice to see.
7. The water at the top of the Eastern Conference standings remained tranquil, but some 15 games below the surface, Sunday was wild. The Bucks lost to Jalen Brunson and the Knicks. The Knicks and the Magic (who beat the Bulls) are now just a game behind Milwaukee for the No. 2 seed. The Cavaliers – who have lost seven of their last 10 – blew a 26-point lead and lost to the Clippers. The Pacers beat the Heat, which puts them in a great position to hang onto the No. 6 seed. The 76ers won and moved past the Heat into the No. 7 seed.
Got all that? No? The long and the short of it is that there’s a very decent chance the Sixers and Heat play in the 7-8 play-in game. Also, the Bucks – who have games against the Celtics, Thunder and the third-place Magic (twice!) are absolutely flailing, and seeds 2-5 are by no means locked into place yet.
8. The regular season comes to an end in a week, so we’d like to take a moment to remind Celtics fans that this week is your last chance to enjoy Celtics play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman. The games themselves might not matter, but the voice calling them certainly does.
The Celtics face the Bucks on Tuesday, followed by three home games against the Knicks, Hornets and Wizards.
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