Everything you need to know about the Celtics' 129-117 win over the Cavs with BSJ insight and analysis:
HEADLINES
Jayson Tatum erupts for career night: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the future of the Boston Celtics and that future looked particularly bright on Friday afternoon. Brown set a new regular season career-high with 34 points while Tatum added 30 as the Celtics cruised to their fifth straight win over the Cavs. It was the first time since 2014 that a pair of Celtics crossed the 30-point plateau in the same game and both Tatum (11/20 FG) and Brown (13/20 FG) did it with incredible efficiency against an overmatched Cavs defense. Kevin Love (30 points) managed to help the visitors keep things interesting for the first three quarters but the C’s led by double digits for the final 36 minutes of the game thanks to the scoring outbursts from Brown and Tatum. Enes Kanter added 14 points and 9 rebounds off the bench while Gordon Hayward added a team-high 8 assists to go along with 7 points and 5 rebounds. The Cavs had their three-game winning streak snapped with the defeat and dropped to 0-3 against the Celtics this year. Meanwhile, the Celtics moved all alone into the second seed in the East with the victory.
Marcus Smart inches closer to return: The guard sat out his eighth straight game due to an eye infection against the Cavs but got in a hard workout before the game with the coaching staff. A crucial tilt with the Raptors on Saturday night looks like a new target date as he ramps up his activity after getting cleared by doctors.
“He really hadn’t done anything until the 23rd or 24th in a couple of weeks,” Brad Stevens explained. “So it’s a matter of making sure that not only his cardio’s up, but also it probably wouldn’t be best to start playing again in a back to back. Two days in a row would be tough. He went really hard yesterday to see how he would respond. There was a thought that he could potentially play today. We think that it’s best to make sure that he’s ready to go full-go. He’ll get another good workout. He feels good. And we’ll see what he feels like tomorrow.”
TURNING POINT
The Celtics rode the hot scoring of Brown and Tatum in the first half, putting together a 22-4 run in the opening minutes of the second quarter to open up a double-digit lead that they maintained for the final 36 minutes of the win.
TWO UP
Jaylen Brown in the first quarter: The 23-year-old continued his sensational hot shooting stretch from Christmas in the first quarter of this one, scoring a team-high 13 points for Boston in the frame on 5/6 FG to help the C’s jump out to an 11-point lead after one — on his way to a new regular-season career-high with 34 points.
Jayson Tatum: The 21-year-old set a new career-high with 39 points earlier this week against the Hornets but he looked like he was hoping to make a run at it again on Friday, posting 24 points in the first half on 9-of-13 shooting from the field in what was one of the most productive halves of his NBA career.
TWO DOWN
Kemba Walker from 3-point range: A rare off-shooting night from downtown for the All-Star, who misfired on seven of his first eight attempts from 3-point range to drag his season average below 40 percent.
The Cavs backcourt: The Celtics versatile wings had one of an undersized Colin Sexton/Darius Garland on them for the majority of the night and that led to monster nights for Brown and Tatum, who feasted on the mismatches. The Cavs are looking young but there is not a lot of promise within that group, especially on the defensive end.
TOP PLAY
.@FCHWPO throws it down for tonight's @jetblue play of the game ? pic.twitter.com/pkrtFPHXEy
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 27, 2019
TWO TAKES B-ROBB WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
The Celtics are poised to win 10-plus games in a row now: The schedule is going to get tough when it comes to volume in January, but the Celtics will be heavily favored in their next six games leading into a showdown with the Sixers in Philly on Jan 9th. If they can get past an undermanned Raptors team on Saturday night, their next five opponents are all below .500 squads with three of those coming at the Garden. Marcus Smart is trending towards a return this weekend, which gives the C’s a chance at having their full squad together for the first time since November. That boost in talent should help the C’s potentially put together another impressive streak of wins and create some separation between themselves and a crowded pack in the East's 2-6 spots.
Three All-Stars is becoming less of a pipe dream for Celtics: The case for two All-Stars was already strong going into today but the consistency we are seeing from Brown and Tatum over this last stretch, along with the C’s success are putting them higher on the list for All-Star consideration. Brown has been one of the most efficient players in the league for his size all year long while averaging over 20 points per game. Tatum’s starting to get his shooting averages in a place that falls in line with All-Star production that he has across the rest of his box score. For now, the Celtics are playing like a top-4 team in the NBA and that duo has done plenty of the heavy lifting with Walker in the wake of several injuries. The better the Celtics look as a team in the next month, the harder it will be to keep that duo out of the mix.