Everything you need to know about the Celtics 116-86 win over the Hornets, with BSJ insight and analysis.
Box Score
This was almost a perfect game. The first quarter was tight, but the second and third fueled a monster blowout and made this an almost perfect win for Boston. They...
- Blew out a shorthanded team missing three very important players
- Generated a lot of good looks on offense
- Forced turnovers (17) and scored off those (15 points)
- Were able to limit their core players to 28 minutes or less
“We didn’t do it perfect, but we did navigate it to the point where we’re not too far away from where we need to be on both ends of the floor,”
Brad Stevens
said. “It’s one game. But if we structurally can continue to improve offensively and we can play defense at the intensity level of the last – most of the last really four games. ... the goal would be that we can be a handful. I don’t know what that means, but we could be hard to beat. That’s what we’ll keep shooting for.”
The offense is humming
. Boston is now up to the 8th-best offense in the NBA since the All-Star break (115.4 offensive rating). They’re doing it by emphasizing the backdoor cuts and using those to generate a lot of 3-pointers.
“It’s just another avenue to get a paint threat,” Stevens said. Teams worried about the cuts suddenly back off a little, and that allows the rest of their offense to flow. Boston’s 54 3-point attempts was the second-highest output of the season.
Romeo Langford made his debut
. He only played 12 minutes and was fine. He hit a 3. He tried to defend. Nothing remarkable, but it’s notable in that Romeo does, indeed, exist.
“My first workout back, my legs, my body, everything felt terrible,” he said after the game. “And I was really planning on playing on Friday, but I had a little 4-on-4 session and really didn’t feel comfortable at all. ... I told them, ‘Just give me until Sunday and I’ll feel better.’ And that’s what we did. I had two good workouts after that and got my feel back, got my shot back, and that’s why I felt good today.”
Langford’s case of COVID-19 was a bad one.
“It was pretty bad for when I had the symptoms. I had the symptoms for about four or five days and it hit me pretty hard,” he said. “I felt like I had a really bad flu and then I ended up losing my taste and smell. I really still can’t smell that much. So I wasn’t really allowed to do anything for two and a half weeks. So my main thing coming back was just getting my wind and getting my feel for the game and feeling the ball and stuff like that.”
TURNING POINT
Marcus Smart
banked in a 3-pointer a little more than a minute into the third quarter, and it unleashed a barrage of 3-pointers that blew the game wide open.
TOP PLAY
FOUR UP
Jaylen Brown
: He was the tone-setter, carrying Boston through a tough first quarter with 11 of his 17 points. He shot 5-8 from deep and was able to sit after just 25:50.
Robert Williams
: 16 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block on the night for Williams who moves the ball well and has found his balance with the starters.
When I first wrote about whether he should start or come off the bench, there was a fear that he wouldn’t be the same rim threat as other guys look to score. The good news is that the water is finding its right level with this group at the moment.
Evan Fournier
: He’s proving to be quite a weapon off the bench, and you can tell he’s starting to fit in well because he’s throwing alley oops to Robert Williams.
“He’s a guy who can put the ball in the basket, and the other team knows that. So they have to put one of their better defenders on him,” Stevens said. “It all has a trickle down effect, and I just think that’s why we need as many guys that can do that as possible and still be able to play together and be able to play with the right flow, the right pace and everything else. ... He’s a good player, knows how to play”
Jayson Tatum:
He was perfect in the third quarter, shooting 5-5 from the field, 3-3 from 3, and 2-2 from the line on his way to 15 points. This included a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that broke Charlotte’s back. Boston outscored the Hornets 40-27 on 8-13 shooting from deep. They had 9 assists on their 14 makes this quarter.
NO DOWN
Aside from a nearly one minute comedy of errors for Brown, the Celtics mostly handled their business in this one. Charlotte was woefully short handed without
Gordon Hayward
,
LaMelo Ball
, or
Malik Monk
, but that only made getting this win that much more important.
ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
This feels a little different
. Charlotte is probably going to hit a rough patch here. They really are at risk of a bit of a freefall. So beating them and the Houston Rockets isn’t exactly reason to chain your lawn chair to a pole along the parade route. But these have been two fairly complete wins.
No infuriating lapses. Just solid play across the board. The ball is moving, guys are taking good shots, the bench is contributing, the team is clicking.
The rest of the week means everything to this team. The Philadelphia 76ers are coming into town looking to lay the wood on a team they might meet in the playoffs. A Boston win over Philly will start to get people to cock their heads and wonder if Boston is onto something. A back-to-back win over New York might elicit an “uh oh” or two. Closing out the homestand by beating Minnesota will start up the “Boston might be dangerous” talk.
Of course, they could get sonned by Philadelphia and very much put back in their place as a team that’s cute and feisty, like a chihuahua.
“Everything we want to do is still in front of us,” Stevens said. “So no reason to get out of sorts, no reason to ride the roller coaster of if we lose the sky is falling vs. if we win, like, talking about how great Romeo was in his 12 minutes. We’re just here trying to get better. And that’s what we’re going to try to keep doing. And hopefully we stay that way. And if we do, we might be tough to beat.”