BSJ Game Report: Celtics 122, Kings 104 - Energy shift turns a late deficit into a blowout 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 both started cold, but Boston warmed up quickly to take a 14-point lead after the first quarter. Then they completely fell asleep and fell apart and were outscored by 20 over the course of about the next 21 minutes. Then, in one of the more incredible turnarounds I’ve ever seen, Payton Pritchard and Luke Kornet checked in and the Celtics went on a 33-4 run (32-4 if you count the free throws Jayson Tatum made while they were waiting at the table). The Celtics just ran the Kings out of the gym after that moment.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Energy shift: I’ll be mentioning this a lot here and separately in my featured piece because I literally have never seen this before. I’ve seen guys change the energy with their play after sitting for a half, but I’ve never seen an entire dead arena wake up and go nuts just by Pritchard checking in. This isn’t hyperbole. The entire building changed just with the announcement of his name. 

Best and Worst: This game was the best of times and the worst of times for the Celtics, and another example of how “Engaged Boston Celtics” are a juggernaut and “Lazy Boston Celtics” can be crushed by anyone.

Oh by the way, Tatum was awesome: Just another monster night for one of the leaders in the MVP race. 

TURNING POINT

When I tell you the building was dead, it was almost comically bad. The next step was some sort of cinematic device to highlight it like tumbleweed or an exaggerated cough from somewhere in the distance. It really was like someone kicked out a plug after the first quarter and they found it, Airplane! style, when Pritchard and Kornet checked into the game with 3:12 to go in the third.

FIVE UP

Jayson Tatum: A wonderfully aggressive game to take advantage of a team lacking rim protection. He didn’t get to double-digit free throw attempts, but my new stat to watch is how many of those he has this year. I think he’ll have more this year than his last two years combined (18) and possibly even the last three (23). He has six so far. He finished with 30 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal.

Jaylen Brown: Foul trouble limited his minutes, but the minutes he played were pretty good. 25 points on 56% shooting, 6-6 from the line, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and just 1 turnover. We were on our way to a combined 70 points from Tatum and Brown if the whistles didn’t get in the way.

Derrick White: 16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals. He did most of his damage early, and he did a bit of everything. 

Al Horford: Another perfect night from 3. In three of his last four games, he was 3-3, 4-4, and 4-5 from 3. The fourth game was the 0-7 disaster in Chicago. Even with the worst shooting night of his life, he’s 11-19 from 3 in his last 4 games. It’s just that he’s 11-12 in three of them. 

The TD Garden Bull Gang: These dual game days are tough, but with the Bruins playing an overtime game in the afternoon, it put them a bit further behind the 8 ball. Two hours before the game, one of the hoops still wasn’t raised, but in short order, they had the whole place dressed for basketball. Just great work with minimal impact on pregame routines.

TWO DOWN

Marcus Smart: He only took four shots, so missing them all isn’t the worst thing in the world. He just seemed to be a little out of sorts in this game. He was also in foul trouble, so I think that messed with a lot of guys in this game. He had 5 assists, but 4 turnovers.

Grant Williams: His box score is mostly empty. He took 3 shots and hit none, and he added another technical foul to his resume. More in a second. 

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- The Celtics vs. the refs thing has to stop

Williams got his technical foul on the opposite end of the floor where he really earned it, but referee Natalie Sago was going to let it go. He argued a non-call and tracked Sago the length of the left sideline, so distracted by his argument that he ran into another player and they both fell. 

I thought she should have called a foul there just to teach him a lesson, but she still let it go. Then after Williams blocked a shot he said something else and she blew the whistle. When White went to ask what the tech was for, she clearly was gesturing and talking about how he carried the argument all the way down the floor. 

The Celtics need to play the Frozen soundtrack over the PA system when this happens so everyone can just let it go. 

“I think it's just we can't be distracted,” Joe Mazzulla said. “The mind can't focus on two things at once, can't focus on what's going wrong and what I have to do next.”

Mazzulla doesn’t think the techs are an issue, joking that “there’s like six yellow cards a game in the World Cup,” which is fair in a sense. But the culprits are always the same guys: Tatum and Williams. Tatum joked afterward that he was glad he wasn’t the guy to get one tonight, but Williams is up to four of them now. 

Techs happen in games, but techs are inevitable with these guys. There's no reason for Williams to have that many. I’ve said that before, but I’m sure I’ll say it again. 

The main story out of this game is how Pritchard and Kornet came in and changed the energy, but that means the energy had to be bad, first. 

"I think there were just a lot of calls tonight. I think in the third quarter, we was in the bonus with eight minutes or seven minutes left in the third quarter,” Brown said. “Then there was stoppages in the game. Lot of calls. Whether they were good or bad, no comment. But there were just a lot of calls that took the energy and life out of the building.”

They also distracted the Celtics and took the life out of them. For all they do well, they almost let the officiating trigger a landslide of negativity and a bad loss at home. The dramatic change was fun and it will be celebrated, but I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that this team still has a big flaw when it comes to complaining to officials and letting that derail them too often. They're too good to let that be an issue.

UP NEXT: The Celtics host the Wizards Sunday night at 6