Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown look regular season-ready in easy Celtics preseason win over Denver

The Celtics wrapped up their trip to Abu Dhabi with another win over the Denver Nuggets 130-104, breaking things open with a 42-16 third quarter. Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Derrick White all played a little more than they did in the first game, logging about 23 minutes apiece. Brown and Tatum were the team leaders in scoring, with 21 and 17 points respectively. 

Here are some thoughts from the game. 

Jaylen Brown: He was a beast in this one. He bullied his way through smaller guys, trucked Vlatko Cancar on the break for an and-1 layup, and hit tough shot after tough shot. 

He also had three assists in a Celtics offense that has looked pretty good in the preseason. 

Just look at how patient Brown was on this play:

Brown has come into camp ready to play. 

Jayson Tatum: The jumper looks good. He had another 3-7 night from 3, so he’s 6-14 from deep in two games. 

Tatum has been hunting his shot in the preseason so far, which I think is just him trying to get as many up as he can knowing he’s not playing a full game. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been distributing. He had four assists in this one and started a few other plays that opened things up for his teammates. 

Tatum, like Brown, looks ready. 

Derrick White: He hasn’t missed a beat from last season. I have no notes, no concerns, no nothing here. DWhite is a pro. 

Jrue Holiday: He played 17 minutes and did a little bit of everything. He hit a few shots, scored seven points, grabbed three rebounds (one offensive), had one assist, two steals, and a block. Typical Holiday. 

Luke Kornet: Started in place of Al Horford, who didn’t play again. I like what I’ve seen from Kornet. Obviously, guarding Nikola Jokic is a problem, so that didn’t exactly go great. But his offense fits this Celtics team, even if it’s different than what they run with Horford or Kristaps Porzingis. Kornet is setting screens and short rolling, which gets him the ball around the free-throw line. From there, he’s making good passes to keep the offense flowing. 

The best thing I can say about Kornet with the starters is that he does what needs to be done. It won’t be flashy, and there will certainly be some tough matchups, but I’m confident Kornet can be part of an effective solution to get through the non-Porzingis time. 

Just don’t give him the ball on the wing on a fast break.

Xavier Tillman: He hit an above-the-break 3-pointer in this one and finished 1-2. So we have two games of good 3-point shooting from him, which is nowhere near a sample size to tell us anything has changed, but it’s still exactly what you want to see from him. 

I think the knee scope has him some of his lateral quickness back, and we saw that on switches being able to stay in front of his man. Again, his size against Jokic made for some tough moments, but who in the world can defend Jokic anyway?

It’s early, but my initial reaction from these two games is a growing confidence that Boston is fine with the bigs they have.     

Sam Hauser: He was 3-3 from 3, but I was more impressed with him off the dribble. He had a couple of nice takes when he was run off the line, which is an important element to his game. 

During the regular season, an increased ability to create off the dribble will keep defenders honest and open up some cleaner looks from 3. 

Payton Pritchard: He came around eventually to hit a bunch of shots after some early foul trouble. Typical Pritchard stuff. 

Jaden Springer: He does not look comfortable shooting 3-pointers. He did hit one from the corner, but one that he missed from up top looked like a struggle for him. They need him to get comfortable with that because he can be such a difference-maker on defense. I can see him in the old Pritchard role of being an energy change off the bench. Pritchard has grown beyond that (even though he is also still an energy guy himself), so Springer has a chance to seize an opportunity, but he can’t be a negative on offense. 

Jordan Walsh: [highlight all from Springer section, Ctrl C, scroll down, Ctrl V, change names appropriately]

Baylor Scheierman: The added muscle will benefit him. He’s not ready to make any contribution with the big club yet. He’ll need time to develop in Maine. 

Lonnie Walker: Only played 6:51 after only playing a few minutes in the last game. If he was in Joe Mazzulla’s plans, he would have gotten some time earlier on. I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong, and I was so, so wrong about what Walker was going to be here. I’ll still hold out some hope that maybe I’m calling the time of death prematurely, but there's no way anyone with a chance to crack the rotation would not play any meaningful minutes in these two games.

The Celtics now have about a week off as they get back to Boston and try to reset their body clocks. There were a lot of positives that can be taken out of this trip, and everyone on the team is going to lean on that, but I don't have to. 

This Celtics preseason is so stupidly laid out because of this trip. They went halfway around the world to play these games and now they come back to play three games in four nights starting on Saturday at TD Garden. 

It’s a good thing they already look like they're ready to go. The continuity is huge for these guys. They really haven't skipped a beat from last season, so they don’t need these games for much more than cardio and tinkering.