Lock down defense by the Celtics led to turnovers, the turnovers led to fast break points, and those fast break points turned into a blowout for the Celtics during their 129-106 win over Brooklyn Thursday night.
Suffocating defense early became quick offense for Boston. Al Horford opened the game with a transition dunk seconds into the matchup— the first of 10 first-quarter fast break points. The early aggressiveness, paired with red-hot shooting, paid off, and Boston led 35-22 after the first quarter.
Brooklyn’s only glimmer of hope came in the second quarter, but another flurry of Boston threes quieted that run quickly. Robert Williams was a force in the paint early in the game, tallying 10 points and 7 rebounds in the first half. Smart took all six of his shots from behind the arc, hitting five timely threes to keep the momentum in Boston’s favor.
The Celtics hit 100 points less than 30 seconds into the fourth quarter, and the reserves cleared the bench with more than five minutes remaining in the contest.
Per the NBA on TNT broadcast, this was Boston’s league-leading 10th game where the team never trailed. The Celtics (35-26) sit 6th in the Eastern Conference and hold a 3.5-game lead over Brooklyn. The Celtics’ will take on the Detroit Pistons on Saturday. The Pistons are the only team Boston has lost to since Jan. 28.
STUDS
Marcus Smart: A trio of first-quarter threes helped the Celtics build their lead, and Boston never looked back. Smart made his previous season high for threes, six, Feb. 16 against Brooklyn. He followed that performance up with five tonight. His passing was also phenomenal, finding a cutting Horford for the first of six assists on the first bucket of the game.
Robert Williams III: Williams played just 25 minutes tonight due to foul trouble and the lopsided score but was extremely productive in that limited action. He registered a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, but his greatest impact was off of the statsheet. The attention Timelord commands in the pick-and-roll repeatedly cleared space for his teammates. Brooklyn could not afford to lose track of the center and, whenever they did, he capitalized.
Anyone standing beyond the three-point line: It’s difficult to feature just a few athletes when a team turns in such a complete shooting performance. Eight Celtics hit a shot from long range, and the team shot 40.5% on 42 attempts. Tatum and Smart combined 17 attempts from deep, making 9.
Patty Mills
Nothing went right for Patty Mills Thursday night. The point guard insisted on taking transition threes throughout the night despite making none of them. He finished 0-9 from the field and 0-5 from deep. On a night where Brooklyn was missing their brightest stars, Mills could not afford to go ice cold.
With the Celtics closing out a hot-shooting opening quarter, Derrick White pulled up for a transition three that dropped through to grow Boston’s lead to 16. The ball looked pure coming off of the career 34% three-point shooter’s fingers, as did most of the long-range attempts the Celtics took. The game was already slipping away from the Nets at that point, and White’s three ensured the game would remain out of reach through the final buzzer.
Per the NBA on TNT broadcast, Jayson Tatum became the first NBA player to have the point total of his shot changed three times by video review. He led the team with 30 points on 10-20 shooting.
Al Horford has played in some high-powered Celtics offenses, and he praised Smart’s performance following his efficient outing.
“Smart was great tonight pushing the pace,” Horford said. “He was getting us going. He was getting the ball up the floor, and that was kind of the message all across. We wanted to play faster, we wanted to be able to push it, put pressure on the defense. It started with Smart, and he’s really doing a good job of that.”
The Celtics covered. . . comfortably. Coming into the game, Boston was a nine-point favorite according to the online sportsbook betonline.ag. The two teams also easily cleared the over, scoring 235 points after betonline set the mark at 213.
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