BSJ Game Report: Celtics 126, Kings 97 - Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown combine for 62 in dominating win

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics win over the Sacramento Kings with BSJ insight and analysis. 

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics and Kings came out playing darts, just bombing away from 3 and putting up a lot of points. Boston, though, also got a ton of points off their defense and built a 24 point lead at one point before the Kings (with some favorable whistles and technical fouls) cut it down to nine. Then Payton Pritchard and Jayson Tatum had enough and put the game away early in the fourth.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Bombs away! The Celtics finished three off their record for made 3-pointers by hitting 22. They hit 55% from deep, and that's with Derrick White only going 1-5. 

Rainin’ Jays: Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for 62 points, on 23-34 field goals, including 10-15 from deep. No one is beating the Celtics when they shoot like that. 

Celtics clinch play-in: The Celtics are officially, at worst, a play-in team. Their magic number to clinch a top-six playoff spot is nine (any combination of Boston wins and losses by the Cavs or by the Raptors).

TURNING POINT

The Kings cut the lead down to 84-75 with 2:29 to go in the third quarter, and Boston answered with a 14-4 run capped by a Pritchard 3-pointer to make it 98-79. We could extend that run to 28-9 when Derrick White hit a 3-pointer with 6:00 left in the game. Either way, Boston answered in a big way. 

THREE UP

Jayson Tatum: This was one of those “the rim looks twice the size” games for Tatum. He shot 7-10 on 3-pointers and the misses were only the slightest bit off. The best part, though, was Tatum didn’t force anything at all. The shots he took were against single coverage, he passed out of double teams, and attacked when lanes opened up. He was a +40! 

Jaylen Brown: He was 3-5 from deep and 8-13 from 2. He was the yin to Tatum’s yang, working his way to the basket.

Payton Pritchard: He was a perfect 5-5 from the field, 4-4 from deep, and once again most of that damage was done early in the fourth quarter. He was 3-3 in the quarter, all 3-pointers, all within the first three minutes. The last one restored Boston’s 20 point lead. 

“The trick for him was to learn to play off the ball more and understand that we have Marcus, Derrick, Jayson, Jaylen that can all handle and create shots for him,” Ime Udoka said. “At times, he's a great screener and popper and he mixes it up and we bring some smaller matchups into it. So he's done a great job of not just handling it but playing off the ball.”

Pritchard also had 8 assists. 

ONE DOWN

Derrick White: This is strictly based on his shooting, which I admit is unfair. He didn’t have a bad game. In fact, I’m impressed by how he continues to make the right play time and time again even when his shot is so frustratingly off. 

“He's missed a few short and the bench and we are all really encouraging him,” Udoka said. “We know what he adds to the team. As far as the shots, he's getting great looks and you can see the whole bench, 'Stay with it' and he hits one and the bench will get him going. He does so many other things, obviously, defensively, but offensively, making the right play, driving the ball, he's one of our best facilitators. If shots aren't falling, he can impact the game in other ways.”

He finished with 5 assists, so he’s still trying to impact the game in other ways. The shots really do need to start falling though. 

TOP PLAYS

FOUR TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- The defense should get most of the credit

They made mistakes that let the Kings get hot early, but after they started 7-10, the Celtics defense recovered to hold them to 6-26 the rest of the way. Boston scored 24 points off 16 Sacramento turnovers, which is pretty significant in a 29 point win. 

- What happened to Boston’s third quarters?

Boston had been coming out of halftimes so great, Udoka even got to drop a Coach of the Month joke during a postgame session. Now, third quarters have suddenly become an issue.

“The other night, (Steph) Curry went out and I think we relaxed a little bit in the third quarter. Tonight, just too many open looks,” Udoka said. “We just remind them to get back to guarding because we are scoring enough and we did that in the fourth quarter, although we gave up 31 that quarter, we gave up 18 in the fourth and kept them under 100. We'll live with it if we can have a 26, 22 and 18 point quarter. With one 30 point, we still hold them under 100, a good overall night.”

The Celtics just have to be careful about this little hiccup. No team plays a perfect 48 minutes every night, but letting the foot off the gas so much that big leads dwindle down to single digits is simply flying too close to the sun. Their defense has bailed them out, but one of these days someone is going to get just too hot for the Boston Icarus. 

- Nice rest of Robert Williams and Al Horford

Udoka said he wanted to get Daniel Theis more acclimated and this was a nice step. Boston now has their bigs coming off a game where each played in the 20-minute range heading into Denver. He can try riding them more against Nikola Jokic, and then each can get more rest on the back-to-back against OKC

- Bad night for the refs

The third quarter turned into a whistle-filled mess with three questionable technical fouls handed out. We were enjoying a nice game when things got uneven and disjointed. Udoka even got a tech because one ref heard him talking poorly about another ref to Marcus Smart. 

“I was surprised. I was talking to Marcus about another official and an official close by called (the tech),” Udoka said. “So, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about another ref to one of my players when the other ref is there. They heard it, and that was why she gave me a T. It had nothing to do with her.”

Unless Udoka called that other ref something that crossed a line, that shouldn’t have been a tech. I’ll go so far as to say none of the techs on either team should have been called. If anyone should have gotten a tech, it was the very animated and angry Alvin Gentry early in the game. 

Weird night.