BSJ Game Report: Celtics 126, Lakers 105 - C's pounce early, Brown scores 30, for fourth straight win

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

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics stormed out of the locker room, building a 39-17 lead on nearly 64% shooting after the first quarter. They cooled off a bit but pushed the lead up to 29 in the second, but they got a little sloppy, and it settled at 23 at halftime. The Celtics looked content to go shot-for-shot in the third quarter, and the Lakers got the lead to 15, but that was as close as it would get.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- No juice to the matchup: Celtics-Lakers is always an event … well, almost. This game lacked a significant amount of star power as the Lakers sat LeBron James on the back-to-back and Luka Dončić was still in Slovenia for the birth of his baby. Marcus Smart even missed the game due to injury, so there wasn’t even any fun to be had with him. 

The result was an early barrage by the Celtics, followed by significant stretches of quiet as they played mostly even the rest of the way. This game felt more like a mid-January game against the Wizards than it did a nationally televised rivalry game.

- Hot night from deep: The Celtics' 3-point shooting has arrived. They shot 24-45 from 3, a cool 53.3%. Every time the Lakers tried to make some noise, someone on the team hit a 3. There were certainly some stretches where the Celtics' offense probably devolved into hunting those shots, but they were also falling. 

- Four in a row: The Celtics now have their longest winning streak of the season and the longest non-Thunder streak in the NBA. 

“I think the best part was it’s our fifth game in seven nights,” Sam Hauser said. “We came out and I thought we were the harder-playing team right from the jump. Obviously we got off to a great start and maintained that throughout the game. Sometimes you have to beat the schedule a little bit and this has been a tough week with travel and a lot of games. So I think more so than anything you just have to dig down deep in games like that and bring it out of you.”

They’ve won nine of 11 games and they lead the NBA with five wire-to-wire wins. 

The best part is this will go down as a win over a “good” team since the Lakers came in at 16-5, which means they have tied the Pistons for the most wins in the NBA (8) against teams .500 or better. 

TURNING POINT 

There never really was one. They opened the game on an 11-3 run, they were doubling the Lakers up at the 4:51 mark (24-12), and it was 39-17 by the end of the first quarter. Aside from a third-quarter lull that got it to 15, they were never really threatened. 

THINGS I LIKED

- Making Austin Reaves work: I don’t care what the final stat line says (it says he scored 36 points on 9-18 shooting with eight assists), the Celtics made Reaves work incredibly hard in the first half. He was 0-5 in the first quarter when the Lakers fell behind by 22. He started getting to the line in the second quarter, eventually going 15-17 on free throws, but by the time he go anything meaningful going, the damage had been done. 

- Derrick White staying hot: He wasn’t always great in this game. In fact, he got yanked at one point for throwing a lazy turnover. But he shot 50 percent from 2 and 3 to put up a very nice 19/5/6 night with two steals and a block. 

“Derrick is finding his stride,” Jaylen Brown said. “When Derrick starts checking his pockets for threes, you know that's a good sign for our team.”

Jaylen Brown: He scored 30/8/8 and it didn’t even feel like he was working all that hard. It’s his third career 30/8/8 game and his 12th 30-point game of the season.

Jordan Walsh: He got the early call to guard Reaves and was a big reason why Reaves struggled to get going. Then he went 4-5 from 3 on top of that effort. He was a team-high +28 and his full line was 17 points, four rebounds, one assist, one steal, and two blocks. 

“Honestly, it's been great,” Brown said. “I don't want to boost his head up too much. I don’t want him to start getting cute. He’s gotta still take care of the details, but he's been doing a good job, but we’re going to need him to maintain that, so y’all don't boost his head up too much.”

He’s hit 18 of his last 19 shots. Maybe he can get a little boost.

Sam Hauser: He’s getting it going from deep as well. He was 4-7 from 3 but he also added a couple of steals. 

Josh Minott: Add another 2-3 night to his books. I don’t know when that magic carpet ride will end, but Minott is up to almost 44% from deep. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- Getting casual: I’m not going to make too big a deal of it because this is how it goes, but there were definitely stretches of them just screwing around. The beginning of the fourth quarter was actually important. I could have included their 9-0 run to start the fourth to get the lead back up to 24 as part of the turning point because that's when the Celtics put the final nail in this coffin. It should have come to that, but also the lead didn’t dip below 15, so it’s not like they were in any real danger. 

- The Austin Reaves whistle: Seventeen free throws? Do the Lakers get to transfer LeBron’s star calls to someone else when he’s not playing? 

- The atmosphere: This is not on Celtics fans at all. It’s on the NBA for creating this situation. Beating the Lakers is fun, but this was like going to a big Broadway show and seeing nothing but understudies. 

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Beating the Lakers always feels good.

I know I just basically said I was bored with this game, but there's something about looking at that scoreboard and seeing the logos with those numbers next to them.  

I don’t care who they throw in those jerseys. If five guys are running around in Forum Blue and Gold on the parquet, then there's a satisfaction that goes along with beating them. 

“Every experience of Celtics-Lakers, you could feel that history with the energy in the building,” Brown said. “As a player, what better environment for basketball. Lot of history. Lot of people tuning in. Lot of people are excited. All you gotta do is show up and play."

Think of it like Homer Simpson winning the children’s nuclear design contest.

“This was a contest for children!” “Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out.” 

The Lakers didn’t have their two best players or a defensive spark plug in Smart. The Celtics pounced on Reaves early and were already miles ahead when he finally started scoring. But it’s still Lakers-Celtics. 

Next Up: The Celtics visit Toronto for a game a 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.