Celtics stomp shorthanded Sixers by 50 in home preseason opener

The Boston Celtics returned to the TD Garden for their first basketball game since winning the NBA championship. They took on the Delaware Blue Coats Philadelphia 76ers, who didn’t play any of their regular starters (most of whom didn’t even make the trip). The result was the embarrassment you’d expect it to be, with Boston winning by 50 (leading by 54 at one point), putting up 71 points by halftime, and 139 overall.

Here are some takeaways. 

- The star of the game was Luke Kornet. The Celtics' ball movement was too much for the young, disjointed Sixers and Kornet cashed in over and over again. While there's not much to take from a bunch of All-Stars toying with a bunch of people you’ve never heard of, it does show that Kornet knows how to take advantage of space and movement. 

“He’s worked really hard this summer and I’ve definitely seen him get better,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “Just his screen reads, his spacing recognition. He’s one of our best defenders because of his ability to communicate on the fly the different stuff we do every single possession and he does a great job of reading each possession and I think he’s gotten really better offensively up to this point, just with his screening angles and his spacing recognition. And he continues to get better and better.”

Once again, Kornet did the little things well, but he also had some fun. 

“I think, honestly I did alright in some respects today, but then I definitely have some other places where I know I could have done something different that would have probably been more effective,” Kornet said. “I've been able to play with a lot of those guys for quite a few years now. We had a lot of advantages on the court today, so it was a little easier than we probably expected it to be, but I think it's a pretty good starting point.”

He had a couple of assists as well, including a nice pass to Jayson Tatum for 3. I’ve made the case for starting Kornet during the regular season and each game has just solidified that thinking. 

- I’ll just mention Tatum and Jaylen Brown to get it out of the way. They played great but they faced little resistance. 

“Every time we step out on the floor, it don’t really matter who the opponent is,” Brown said. “We’ve just gotta play our standard of basketball. So that’s the tone that we set throughout training camp and that’s the mindset that we have.”

- Tatum needs to perfect this shot:

This is a fourth-quarter shot. This is a playoff shot. This is the shot he needs to hit against tough defenses when they're clogging the lane on him. He can get it every time he wants

- Xavier Tillman was 3-3 from 3. He’s 6-8 to start the preseason, which is still not a big enough sample to make any determinations. But it’s great to see him carry that over from Abu Dhabi. To stay hot after all that time off make it a little more than just a hot streak. That's as far as I’ll take it for now, but it’s worth watching. 

“He’s just doing a great job being decisive,” Mazzulla said. “His shot selection and his spacing and his pick-and-roll reads, so he’s worked really hard in the offseason just becoming more versatile and the player development team has worked really hard on that, and it’s a credit to them. He’s playing really well and I really like the time he’s putting into it.”

Tillman was also +38 in 15 minutes, which is a fun stat. 

- Do not give Sam Hauser space to shoot. He hit one on the move tonight that made me tilt my head. It’s one thing to lose him and give him a clean look, but if he’s creating his own space and hitting? Forget it. The “Hauser doing other things besides catching and shooting” storyline is rocketing up the charts of most important development of the preseason.

- Payton Pritchard was hunting his own shot tonight. He hit his 3-pointers (3-7) but he was 1-5 from 2. Maybe he’s not playing tomorrow, because he was going for his own a little more in this one. 

- I’ve given up hope that Lonnie Walker will be on the roster on opening night, but it was nice to see him produce in 25 minutes tonight. He finished with nine points and seven assists along with some solid defense. 

"I saw some things from him today that he might not think are important, or other people won't, but they're really, really important things, defensively and then offensively,” Mazzulla said. “Whether it was his positioning or whether it was a small cut that he made or a read that he made, those things go a long way because they open up opportunities. They may be things that have been taken for granted. But he was efficient, 4 out of 7, and some of the stuff that doesn't show up on the stat (sheet), he picked up on, and it was great to see that. He's enjoying just kind of working hard, and we'll get another crack at it again tomorrow."

This was actually Walker’s first chance to get some reps with some of the regulars. He revealed that he hasn’t really gotten much run even in practices, so these minutes are especially important for him. 

“I'm really happy that I got some action today, I got my feet wet,” Walker said. “As far as just what I got to provide for the team is just other ways to impact winning. It's not just about scoring. I think everyone knows I can score. So it's more just all the other little things and kind of bumping it up to a whole another notch."

- The leader in the race for Oshae Brissett’s minutes might be Jordan Walsh. He was 3-3 from 3 tonight, which, like Tillman, is still in the “nice to see” stage of the preseason and hopefully progressing. Jaden Springer didn’t play, but with the back-to-back, he might have been held out in order to get big minutes against Toronto. 

Regardless, Walsh has shown enough this preseason to insert himself into the discussion. Maybe he’ll earn some more time in Boston, maybe he won’t, but he’s shown good progress so far and that's encouraging. He’s getting better, which shows he’s putting in the work. 

- It was good to see Baylor Scheierman hit a couple of 3-pointers. 

- Kristaps Porzingis is still a long way from playing, but he’s on the bench and having fun. During one point in the second quarter, he was pointing into the stands and gesturing at fans who were calling out to him. The happy-go-lucky Porzingis is still in full effect. 

- In that vein, Al Horford and Jayson Tatum both participated in the wave tonight, so that tells you how things were going. 

- And finally, we got to see old friend Guerschon Yabusele in this one.

“It was great,” Brown said. “Yabu’s one of my good friends. We kind of came into the organization together so to see him back in the NBA –– he’s been playing well overseas, I thought he had a great Olympic run and it kind of led to him being here. Even though he’s on the Sixers, it’s all good.”

The NBA is a lot different than the Olympics or Euroleague, so what he’ll be able to do is yet to be seen. He’s still appreciative of his second chance. 

“A lot of things have changed because I’ve been through a lot of teams and different changes in my life,” he said before the game. “It’s been great. I think I’ve just evolved and I’m more mature, understanding stuff. I have a lot of experience now and of course I shoot better and I play better overall.”

He admits there was a time he thought he might never get back to the league, so this is a big opportunity for him.

“It’s been five years and of course when the summer was coming I was expecting to get a call, but it just made me work harder, keep pushing, never giving up,” he said. “And every time I was going back on my team I was like, ‘I’ve gotta do more.’ So it was just a long process but I think it was much needed. I’m a different player now and I understand things more and I just keep on pushing.”

He was fine in this game, hitting a couple of 3s in a mini-shootout with Hauser in the second quarter. Yabu really seems appreciative of this chance, so it’s good to see him get it. Hopefully, he can stick around for a little while.