BSJ Game Report: Celtics 133, Wizards 129 - Porzingis, Tatum combine for 69 in shaky win over Washington

Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the Wizards, with BSJ insight and analysis.

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics were extremely casual to start the game, allowing 35 points (18 in transition), but luckily only going into the second down four. They continued to play that way in the second, scoring more than enough but playing their worst defense of the season to go down seven at the half. Boston woke up halfway through the third quarter and went on a monster run to take a 15 point lead into the fourth. They were cruising through the quarter but, just like the Hawks game, relaxed and saw things get tight before they finally closed it out.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Kristaps Porzingis the matchup problem: He finished with 34 points, but it wasn’t just a hot scoring night. This was a calculated exploitation of a smaller Wizards team incapable of being able to handle him. He went to the line 14 times and was perfect while shooting 50% from 2 and from 3. 

“A lot of times we let him go to work. He’s gonna get fouled, he’s gonna shoot over the top, and you can’t get bored with that,” Jayson Tatum said. “It’s the right play. We’ve got to do that five, six times in a row, find a switch, get him the ball and move out the way, then that’s what we gotta do.”

- Harder than it had to be: Here we go again. The Celtics very clearly came into the game thinking they didn’t have to give out their best effort and it nearly burned them. 

“I feel like those are the nights when you go in with that mindset you could lose a game or make it tougher than you’re supposed to,” Tatum said. “The fact of the matter is yeah they might not be the best team, but they’ve got guys that can play. Any given night they could get hot, they could make shots and make it a ball game. That’s what happened tonight. We did a lot of good things out there and we had to figure it out. But a win is a win, so we’ll take it.”

I’ll get into this more later. 

TURNING POINT

The Celtics closed the final 6:23 of the third quarter on a 24-11 run that ultimately gave them the cushion they needed to hold on. 

THINGS I LIKED

- The third quarter: Specifically the second half of the third quarter. We can say what we want about games like this and they should have been blowouts and blah blah blah, but this third quarter kind of proved them right (which is part of the problem I’ll get to later). They didn’t need a full 48 minutes of effort to get the win. They clamped down to build the lead and they held it for a full quarter until they relaxed again. 

- Porzingis: Like Tatum said, sometimes you just have to spam what’s working until the other team either stops it or crumbles under the weight of it. 

- Paint touches: They took 50 shots in the paint, 28 at the rim. They took 28 free throws and 34 3-pointers. It was kind of a perfect analytical distribution of points.

- Jayson Tatum: Two assists shy of a triple-double plus two blocks and a steal. It's kind of wild how 35/10/8 didn't feel like a big deal. He was 3-10 from 3, which is obviously one make from a 40% shooting night, but it was the driving that did the bulk of the damage. When he was attacking, he was unstoppable.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- Transition defense: They gave up 36 fast break points, twice as many as normal. That's mostly effort. The story of this game is 26 fast break points allowed in the first half, 10 in the second half, just two in the third. Guess which quarter was their dominant quarter? 

I can expand this to say the defense in general for most of the game because it almost didn’t matter if the Wizards were running or not. This was just a poor defensive effort for about 36 of the 48 minutes.

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- The effort thing … maybe it’s a problem, maybe it’s not. 

I said this after the Hawks game, but we’re here again and I get both sides of this. I feel like an interpreter standing between two people yelling at each other. I hear and understand the team and the fans. They just don’t understand each other a lot of the time. 

Joe Mazzulla loves it. 

“Just because it’s a nine-win team doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a close game,” he said. “We should almost rather want it to be a close game. We got to work on a situation that we simulated in shoot around. To me, I’d rather have that than have a blowout, because we walked through two situations, and they both happened in the exact game, and we got them down pat.”

Okay. That makes sense. Tight games, regardless of circumstance, present opportunities to work on things you might need for the postseason. From Boston’s perspective, they came out slow, Washington got hot, and they have NBA players on the roster capable of beating you. This is all true. 

At the same time, playing down to the competition is a dangerous game that can add some losses to the standings and create some bad habits. It’s not great to play lazy because they think 10 minutes of effort will win the game and then be proven correct. That just means they’ll give 10 minutes of effort next time and hope that's enough then, too. 

The expectations game is a wild one. We develop them because of what the team has done, and then the team getting away from them tells us something bad is happening. When a business makes a certain amount of money every quarter and then suddenly is making less, alarm bells go off. It’s no different here. 

The ultimate question, as always, is whether this is a trend or just a lull. I lean towards the latter because of what this team has been this season. You might disagree, and you’ll have valid evidence to do so. 

I think it’s healthy to understand that a little bit of slippage can go a long way and that even the Wizards, with their record, have guys capable of doing a lot of damage. Corey Kispert has scored 20+ points 15 times in his three-year career, so this should be a shock. Jordan Poole is a clown, but he’s scored a lot of points in his life. So has Kyle Kuzma. Give them some sunlight and they can bloom on any given night. It can be tough to get that toothpaste back into the tube. 

It’s also healthy for the guys on the team to understand that they have set a high standard and it’s not our fault for wanting to hold them to it. 

These guys need the All-Star break in a big way. Porzingis’ quote about not making the All-Star game was telling. 

“To be honest there’s a big part of me that’s kind of happy I can go to Miami or somewhere where there’s sun, get some tan, lift some weights, prepare my body for the postseason for the rest of the season and then postseason,” he said. “There’s definitely some extra rest and extra time I can invest in my body to prepare for what’s coming … and get some tan also.”

Next up: The Celtics hit the road to face Miami Sunday afternoon at 2