C’s make their points, win 10th straight
While the Celtics continue their tear to what should undoubtedly land them the No. 1 seed, a welcomed challenge awaited them as the calendar turned to March: Five consecutive games against the hottest teams in the league, one of the hardest stretches of their schedule that should be valuable to them for the long run.
But right now, no one is hotter than the Celtics.
Jayson Tatum scored 32 points, Jaylen Brown had 25 and Kristaps Porzingis added 24 as the Celtics rolled to a dominant 138-110 win over the Mavericks on Friday night at TD Garden as they continued their recent dominance with their season-long 10th consecutive victory.
Luka Doncic recorded a triple-double with 37 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists for the Mavericks, who had won eight of their previous 10 games. He led the visitors for as long as he could as they put in a strong bid to threaten the league’s best team, but the Celtics completely overwhelmed them in the second half to secure this victory. In a matchup of two of the NBA’s best 3-point shooting teams, the C’s made 21 3-pointers while the Mavs made just nine and shot 26.5 percent from deep.
The Celtics are in a good place, and they look like they’re getting even better as the season is progressing into the last stretch of the season and they gear towards the playoff. Friday’s win was a continuation of a season-long theme of sacrifice and the type of basketball the Celtics aim to play on a nightly basis.
“We just see and reading the game, each and every night and I think that’s just the key is just having humility in that, sacrifice in that,” Brown said. “Obviously, we got a bunch of talented players and now it’s the part of the year where we start to take it up a notch.”
While the Mavs missed many of their open looks, the Celtics were still having trouble putting them away as the visitors racked up second-chance points and Doncic dominated during some stretches. The C’s led most of the night but only by two midway through the third, when P.J. Washington had a chance to put the Mavs in front but missed a 3-pointer.
But that’s when the Celtics went on their run. Brown and Tatum connected on back-to-back 3-pointers as the Celtics went on a 14-3 run to take control of the game. They led by 17 early in the fourth after Brown made an impressive spin move for a layup at the rim before drilling another 3-pointer, and the C’s never looked back behind an offensive avalanche that the Mavs couldn’t keep up with.
The Celtics completely dominated on both ends of the floor in the fourth quarter to seal the win. Al Horford played like a man possessed, which included a ridiculous block of Josh Green. Tatum, who scored 21 of his 32 points in the second half, drilled a stepback 3-pointer to go up 21. Then, after Kyrie Irving missed a layup as he crumbled to the court, Horford hit a 3-pointer in transition to put the Celtics up 24 before making a gesture that the game was over.
Other takeaways from the win:
— Xavier Tillman had not received meaningful minutes in his first three weeks with the Celtics as he recovered from an injury, the AllStar break came and went and he continued to acclimate to a new team. But Joe Mazzulla put him in Friday to start the second quarter in a double-big lineup alongside Horford, and the results were encouraging.
On one sequence, Tillman contributed to a stop, beat everyone down the floor for a transition layup and then played strong defense on a drive from Derrick Jones to force him into a tough miss. Tillman then beat everyone again down the floor and Tatum found him under the basket, but the pass slipped through Tillman’s hands out of bounds.
— Irving was once again greeted with heavy boos from the Boston crowd as he made his latest return to his former home. The boos came during warmups, pregame introductions and every time he touched the ball, and cheers followed whenever he missed a shot or made a mistake. He started the game 3-for-10 from the field.
Irving finished with just 19 points on 9-for-23 shooting.
— Jrue Holiday leads the NBA in corner 3-point percentage and he continued to make his mark from the corner. His made his first three 3-pointers from the corner, including a near impossible one in transition when Derrick White found Holiday, who canned a look while being defended well as his balance took him out of bounds.