BSJ Game Report: Celtics 134, Rockets 107- Tatum, Brown power much-needed blowout win

Everything you need to know about the Celtics’ 134-107 win over the Houston Rockets with BSJ insight and analysis:

Box Score

A blowout win? A BLOWOUT WIN! Well whaddya know? The Boston Celtics actually took care of business against a bad team. 

“It was a good win for us. We definitely needed that, seeing the ball go in a few times,” Jaylen Brown said after the game. “We’re getting everybody back healthy now, so that was a good confidence booster for us.”

The most important stats of the night: 

Jayson Tatum: 28 minutes
Brown: 27 minutes
Kemba Walker: 26 minutes

In a wild season like this, any chance to keep a player’s minutes under 30 is huge.

Marcus Smart and Robert Williams changed the energy. This game was going down an eerily familiar path. With the Houston Rockets up 28-20 and the Celtics defense allowing open 3-pointers after the offense was turning the ball over every other possession, there was a “here we go again” feeling to the game. 

But then something happened that wasn’t happening in February.

Smart and Williams changed the energy of the game, and the Celtics shook off their sluggish start.

“I thought we played with good energy against Brooklyn, just needed to clean some things up,” Stevens said. “Then guys have been really good the last couple of days. I was glad we were able to kind of withstand that early onslaught and play well the rest of the game.”

Once things turned around, Tatum and Brown took turns showing why they were All-Stars and the Celtics were off to the races. 

TURNING POINT

Marcus Smart and Robert Williams checked in a couple minutes apart in the first quarter and ignited a lackluster Celtics team. It was 18-11 Houston when Smart checked in. The Celtics ultimately won the quarter 38-34 and never looked back.

SECOND GUESS

I’ll ask the question here that many Celtics fans seem to have: Why isn’t Robert Williams starting? Brad Stevens is going to go with the double-big lineup until Smart is ready to play starter minutes and, basically, trying to figure out which of Daniel Theis & Tristan Thompson has it going.

“The density of the games and his history, especially last year, we’re just being conservative,” Brad Stevens said of Williams. “It won’t be the same guys every night, because it’ll be matchup dependent, and kind of who’s going. But all three are good players. Rob, obviously, gives us an upside there that I think we just need to keep building and building and building.”

The answer, it seems, is that Williams’ minutes will stay lower for now and will grow. If Stevens stays true to his word, then the rotations will change as we get closer to, and into, the playoffs.

TOP PLAY

Jayson Tatum with the long and winding road to the buzzer-beater

[embed]https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1371278550163070978[/embed]

FIVE UP 

Jayson Tatum: Early in the game he was settling for contested shots but He ended up attacking a lot more as the game went on. This how we want his shot chart to look



OK, there’s still a tad too much midrange, but just look at all that green in the restricted area. 

Jaylen Brown: He scored 16 of his 24 points in the second quarter and looked brilliant doing it. He shot 7-10 and very coolly dominated the game. The most impressive part of Brown’s game now is how patient he has become on drives. It’s his greatest progression, and close observers of Brown’s entire career can truly appreciate just how far he’s come. 

Kemba Walker: Walker struggled early and went into halftime without a made basket, but the Celtics got him a layup to start the third quarter and it triggered an 11-straight-point onslaught. 

“We wanted to give him a chance to attack downhill,” Stevens said. “His energy was great all night and he was loud and he was engaged and then I thought the game honored him by letting the ball go through the net a few times to start the third quarter. We always talk about the game rewards you if you approach it the right way and he does that for us, so it’s good to see that.”

Robert Williams: As already mentioned, Williams was very good again. 16 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, and 19 minutes of putting the Houston defense on edge as they tried to account for him on the floor. For all the talk about Williams’ minutes, he played the most of Boston’s three centers.

Tristan Thompson: 13 rebounds for Thompson as well, including 5 offensive rebounds. 

ONE DOWN

Daniel Theis: Just six minutes for Theis in this game.

“I talked to Theis at halftime,” Stevens said. “We’re going to be in a situation more now where one of those guys isn’t playing as much as we’re smaller. It won’t be the same guys every night, because it’ll be matchup dependent.” 

Without Christian Wood, the Rockets were small and mobile so Theis at the power forward spot was just not an option. 

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

The Celtics look a lot better when they’re rested and they have more of their best players. 

They looked better against the Brooklyn Nets, but the Nets are probably title favorites at this point. They snapped out of their early funk against the Rockets because they had Marcus Smart coming off the bench. 

“We gave up like 21 points in the first five minutes,” Stevens said. “I think we could have used that energy a little bit earlier. So I think that we will just use that energy whenever we can use it.”

These past two games are closer to who the Celtics truly are. They are not good enough right now to consistently beat the best teams, though they are good enough to make those games tough and win from time to time. They’re also good enough that when they face the bad teams, they can run away with the game. 

It’s one win against the worst team in the league right now, so it’s not time to do backflips and hang the “Mission Accomplished” banner. It is more like Inigo Montoya looking down at Fezzik from the tower and saying “you did something right.” 

Now as long as they don’t let it go to their heads, they can start building on it.