BSJ Game Report: Celtics 128, Pistons 112 - Second half surge turns trap game into blowout

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics win over the Detroit Pistons, with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

The trap game was pretty obvious early on with the Pistons drawing fouls, getting a ton of second chances, and hanging around. Jaylen Brown and Sam Hauser kept Detroit at bay in the first half and Jayson Tatum took over from there. He had a monster second half, including a 16 points-in-five-minutes explosion to open the third quarter, to help the Celtics to their fourth straight win.

Box Score

HEADLINES: 

Predictably slow start, but big finish: It was quite unsurprising that this game was hovering around 10 or 11 for a good chunk of the game. The Celtics allowed 15 offensive rebounds and 40 free throw attempts, which is why I said before the game, “They're 10th in the NBA in putback points and they're averaging seven more free throw attempts and makes in their three wins this season, so if Boston doesn’t box out and ends up fouling a lot, the Pistons have a chance." Tatum shut that chance down in the second half after he woke up at halftime, and give the Celtics credit for turning things around as a whole.

Detroit is so bad: They just can’t hit anything at the rim. They came in with the lowest shooting percentage in the league at the rim and it will get worse after this performance. If they were just an average team at the rim, they would have had a lead at the half. 

Brogdon leaves at halftime: He left with right hamstring tightness and didn’t play in the second half. There was no word on the severity after the game. 

“Just evaluating him,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Find out more tomorrow as far as what it is. But not sure yet.”

TURNING POINT

The Tatum explosion to start the third really was the turning point, making it clear the Celtics were coming out strong in the second half, but this game was put away in the fourth. Isaiah Livers fouled Tatum on a 3-pointer and it was called a flagrant landing spot foul. The Celtics turned that into a 5-point play and took their biggest lead of the game, 21 points. 

THREE UP

Jayson Tatum: He was sleepwalking through the first half offensively but he had a monster 26-point second half to finish with 31 points on 50% shooting (45.5% 3pt), and 6-7 from the line. He also had 5 assists. I’ll repeat the 16 points in five minutes stat because that's a ridiculous number. 

Jaylen Brown: Another point from the preview was Jaylen getting out of his little funk. He was 2-6 from 3, so that won’t help that percentage right now, but he was 11-19 (57.9%) overall on his way to 30 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and no turnovers. He finished the job Tatum started, running off 6 straight points. He was a highlight factory in this one with three big dunks. 

Sam Hauser: He was 6-12 from 3 and 3-3 from 2 on his way to a career-best 24 points. Mazzulla has been drawing up sets specifically for Hauser to get shots, which led to the question about what Hauser has done to earn plays being called for him. 

“Not miss,” Mazzulla said, probably half-joking. “He's a guy that can create separation. And so usually guys who can shoot the ball are also really good screeners. So I think putting him in the action is another guy that they have to worry about … it just adds another layer to how they're going to guard.”

ONE DOWN

Grant Williams: He’s been playing well defensively, which is obviously important. But he started for the second straight game and he’s been mostly invisible offensively. He finished with 5 points and 5 fouls. He had more fouls than shot attempts (4). 

“He's got to continue to have his confidence, can't pass up open shots,” Mazzulla said. “I believe in him as a shooter as much as anybody else. And then at times, depending upon his matchup, because we're playing different lineups his matchup is different. And so we have to do a better job of using him as a screener at times so that he could be a playmaker as well.”

TOP PLAYS

TWO TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- I’m mildly concerned about Tatum’s left wrist

Over the summer, Tatum revealed he had a fracture in his left wrist that ultimately healed. Then not too long ago, he fell and hurt it again. 

“Same wrist, same hand, something a little different that we are just managing at this moment,” he said. “Nothing that I gotta, you know, have surgery, but something that’s bothering me. But, just tape it up and go out there and continue to play.”

Obviously it’s not bothering him enough to hurt his performance, but he’s been grabbing at it from time to time and he was warming up with the wrist and thumb wrapped before the game. 

So I’m not so concerned about it that I’m worried about how it might affect him. I am, however, concerned that it’s not even Thanksgiving and he’s managing an injury. It’s his non-shooting hand, but he makes left-handed plays all the time. 

I’m just a little concerned by it. I’m watching it. All it takes is another fall the wrong way to make this a different conversation. 

- Kudos for the halftime turnaround

This bears some repeating. 

I called this a trap game for a reason, and the Celtics did, indeed, fall into that trap. Teams do it all the time. Good teams lose to bad teams in this situation all the time. 

They also take these games down to the wire all the time. We see good teams snooze their way through three quarters and turn it on for 10 minutes and then sit at the end. 

At least this time, the Celtics managed to flip things at the half and keep Tatum and Brown under 32 minutes each. 

“I felt like the second half we did a better job,” Al Horford said. “In the first half, I felt like we could’ve done better. They kind of hung around in the game and in the second half, I felt like we turned it up a notch, played much better, more poise. It’s a sign of growth. Coach challenged us at halftime here to make sure that we were better, and I felt like we were.”

I don’t want to go on and on about it because I don’t want to give a team too much credit for doing its job, but I also want to acknowledge that these games are often tougher than they need to be in the NBA. The Celtics caught it fast enough that I’m not using this space to yell at the team for putting too many unnecessary minutes on these guys’ legs.