BSJ Game Report: Celtics 125, Pelicans 114 - Jaylen Brown builds lead, Jayson Tatum closes the door

Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the New Orleans Pelicans, with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

This game started out as a shootout, and the Celtics were powered by Al Horford’s 3-point shooting early on. Jaylen Brown powered the Celtics with a first-half double-double (18 points and 10 rebounds) and then he doubled his point total in the third quarter alone. Meanwhile, CJ McCollum, who hit his first 6 3-pointers to keep the game close in the first half, missed his next 6 3-pointers as the Boston lead grew. Jayson Tatum scored 14 in the fourth to shut the door.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Brown was basically perfect: I’ll go much more into this separately, but Brown responded to a recent string of not-so-great performances with about as perfect a game as you can expect from him. 

Controlling controllables: The Celtics only gave up 4 offensive rebounds for 8 second-chance points and 9 turnovers for 13 Pelicans points. They were also able to negate those numbers with 8 second-chance points of their own and 11 points off 9 Pelicans turnovers, so that battle was almost square. That, more than anything, allowed the Celtics to absorb the early haymaker thrown by McCollum. 

Brogdon bounceback continues: He quietly had 20 points and 4 assists, including an early third quarter boost to start to open up the game before Brown’s takeover. 

TURNING POINT

The Pelicans cut Boston’s lead down to 1, 69-68 with 8:00 to go in the third quarter, but Boston answered with a 21-8 run over the next 4:15 to push the lead back out to 14. The Pelicans didn’t go away until Tatum put them to bed in the fourth, but they also never seriously challenged after that run. 

FOUR UP

Jaylen Brown: 41 points on 15-21 shooting (71.4%) to go along with 12 rebounds, Per StatMuse, he’s the fourth player with at least 40/10 on 70% shooting this season (Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo). Nice company. 

Malcolm Brogdon: He had 7 points and a steal in that turning point run. He shot 7-11 from the field and 2-5 from 3, continuing his recovery from a rough December. He’s shooting 46.2% from 3 in January.

Jayson Tatum: He got there after a rough start to the game thanks to a 14 point fourth quarter where he shot 5-7 (1-2 3pt), and 3-4 from the line. He finished the game with 31 points and 10 rebounds. The last time the Celtics had multiple players with 30 points and 10 rebounds in the same game was Antoine Walker (36/11) and Paul Pierce (30/10) on March 7, 2001, vs Milwaukee.

“I don't think this is the best you will see. But so far, I think this is the best, in terms of individually, that we both have come out and played and led our team this season," Brown said of himself and Tatum. "But I definitely think we got other limits to reach in the future, in our career. And this is just a part of the process, is right now trying to still learn and figure things out. So I'm interested to see how he continues to grow, I continue to grow over the years, and things like that. But right now we got to focus on what's in front of us and that's taking care of business and trying to get back to the finals.”

Al Horford: He got off to a hot start that helped set a good tone for the game. His 3-point shooting became a major concern for the Pelicans defense. 

TWO DOWN

Payton Pritchard: He hit his first 3-pointer and I thought he might be on his way to a nice redemption game. Instead, it was one of very few highlights for Pritchard. The real low point came late in the game when he ran two fastbreaks and both ended in turnovers. You could see his frustration after making two bad plays like that. 

Sam Hauser: 0-3 overall, 0-2 from 3. He had some nice hustle plays, but that shot has gone away and he needs to find it fast. 

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Brown and Tatum did the scoring damage, but this was a true team win

Tatum and Brown combined for 72 points and 22 rebounds, which is just a monster night for a duo, but I think this win was more about the team picking each other up along the way. 

It starts with Derrick White, who didn’t have a great night but had a great start, with 5 points and 4 assists, and a steal in the first quarter. 

Horford scored 11 of his 14 in the first quarter. He punished the Pelicans defense for losing him.

Luke Kornet didn’t have an overly great night but he was huge to start the second quarter. Boston’s 9-0 run to open that quarter helped them build a little lead. He caught an alley oop, assisted on a Tatum dunk, and rebounded well. 

Brogdon’s big third quarter was great filler as Brown did his damage, making the Pels pay for overreacting to Brown. 

Grant Williams didn't put up any gaudy numbers, but he moved the ball well and had 4 assists. 

The Jays did what they did and they will be rightly celebrated for it. But they didn’t do it alone, even though we might look at the box score and it might look that way. The game was full of little pockets of guys playing great for stretches, and then someone else taking over. 

It was almost a little relay race along the way, or an assembly line of support while the team’s superstars did their jobs. In games like this, the smaller performances tend to get overlooked, and it would be a shame to do that in this one because the team played a pretty good, complete game.

Next up: The Celtics are in Brooklyn on a back-to-back tomorrow night