Post Game - Celtics at Wizards - Monday, October 30 (W)

Celtics-Wizards takeaways: Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum dominate in win

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-wizards-takeaways-jaylen-brown-013514981.html

Nick Goss
Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 9:35 PM EDT·5 min read



Celtics-Wizards takeaways: Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum dominate in win originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

There were several instances last season when the Boston Celtics played down to the competition and lost games to inferior opponents. A couple of Orlando Magic losses come to mind.

They didn't fool around Monday night in the nation's capital. Not at all.

The Celtics came out on fire against the Washington Wizards and built a 42-19 lead after the first quarter. They even led 60-30 at one point in the second quarter.

Jaylen Brown (36 points) and Jayson Tatum (33) led the way as the Celtics dominated wire-to-wire in a 126-107 win at Capital One Arena. The C's rested their starters in the fourth quarter with the outcome decided.

It's hard to take too much from this game. After all, the Wizards are an awful team and likely will be a top contender for the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. But it still was an impressive showing by the Celtics, who have started the 2023-24 campaign 3-0. The last time the C's started 3-0 in consecutive seasons was 1976-77.

The C's will return to TD Garden for a matchup against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night. But before we look ahead to that matchup, here are three takeaways from Celtics-Wizards.

Dominant start powers C's

The Celtics played an almost-perfect first quarter. They scored 42 (!) points, and it wasn't because of a 3-point barrage or a ton of cheap foul shots. The C's hit four of their eight 3-point attempts and two of their three free throws. Most of the damage was done inside the arc, where Boston shot 14-of-20 (70 percent) and just overpowered Washington.

The Wizards had no answers for the C's around the rim, as you can see in the shot chart below.



The Celtics came close to breaking matching their all-time record for first-quarter points. Larry Bird's Celtics scored 50 in a 145-144 win against the Denver Nuggets at the old Boston Garden on Feb. 5, 1982.

Jaylen Brown led the way with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting. He hit all four of Boston's 3-pointers in the quarter. Kristaps Porzingis scored 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

The Celtics also won the rebounding battle 15-8 and forced seven Wizards turnovers over the first 12 minutes. It all added up to a 42-19 lead for the C's entering the second quarter.

The Jays put on a show

Jaylen Brown was on fire in the first half. He scored 27 points on 9-for-15 shooting, including an impressive 7-for-10 mark from 3-point range, through two quarters. His seven 3-pointers in the first half tied a C's record.



Brown finished with 36 points on 13-for-24 shooting (8-for-13 from 3-point range) with six rebounds, two assists and three steals in 32 minutes.

Brown started the season slowly with 11 points in the opener against the Knicks, but he scored 27 against the Heat last Friday before dropping 36 versus the Wizards. One of the most impressive aspects of Brown's performance Monday night was the fact he had zero turnovers.

Jayson Tatum gave a fantastic performance of his own against the Wizards. He scored 33 points on 14-for-21 shooting (6-for-9 from 3-point range) with six rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes.



Tatum and Brown combined to score 69 points through three quarters, which was just six points fewer than the Wizards had as a team. Neither player played in the fourth quarter.

Monday's game was the 23rd time Tatum and Brown both scored at least 30 points. The Celtics are now 22-1 in those matchups. The only duos since 1985 with more 30-point games together are Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant with the Los Angeles Lakers.



Sam Hauser's struggles continue

It was hard to find many negatives from this game, but Sam Hauser's struggles are starting to become a bit of a concern.

Hauser is a very good 3-point shooter, but he can also be inconsistent. He has struggled to find a rhythm to begin the season, shooting just 3-for-15 from beyond the arc over three games.

Hauser hit just two of his nine attempts from 3-point range against the Wizards. He shot 3-for-10 overall.



The Celtics have the best starting five in the league, and those guys are going to carry the large majority of the scoring burden each game. But injuries and slumps are inevitable, and there will be times throughout the season (and even in the playoffs) when the bench has to make an impact offensively.

Hauser has the potential to be a real x-factor with his outside shooting. But if he's not hitting 3-pointers at a good rate, it's hard to keep him on the floor because he doesn't do anything else at a super-high level. The Celtics really need him to find some consistency from deep.

The starting unit applied quite the butt-kicking to an undersized Wizards lineup. The starting five look scary good. Tatum, Brown and Porzingis will deservedly get headlines on this one, but Holiday sure covers a lot of ground, too

The bench beyond Horford didn’t look good, however. Pritchard needs to get his groove back and it looks like Stevens should get a lot more floor time. Hauser is having his problems but at least he quietly kicked in 8 boards.

We are going to need bench scoring at a certain point. I am more than ready to see what Svi can do with the kind of minutes Sam is getting. Prabbit has gone from red hot in Preseason  to ice cold . Maybe we need a bench scorer...or maybe I am overreacting

Sometimes I get an opportunity to sit back and just enjoy a very satisfying experience. Today's win was one of those.

The main rotation is starting to come together. Hopefully, the end of the rotation will soon start falling into place.

Well against a team of this level, with 2 J’s and Zinger all totally on, we didn’t need the bench, but we know that can’t last. This reminded me of a scrimmage/practice game the way we effortlessly beat them down. What made it even more fun was the sharing of the ball for easy baskets over and over like the 86 C’s used to do. Relax I’m not putting us in that class yet, but the ball movement and everyone willing to make the extra pass was beautiful to watch. Zinger had such an efficient game and Holiday and White have such balanced 2 way games. This team is just getting started, totally playing the right way.

What did this game tell me? The front end of the bench Joe thought he had, he doesn't have.

The Wiz are in the first games of their first year of a complete teardown-turnaround, they just traded away Z and Beal this past summer. They are in the hunt for this year's Wembanyama, whoever that is, if this wasn't a blow out it would have been a HUGE disgrace. As it is a very healthy 16 point win is still a cause for concern because our entire bench except for Al was a negative +/-.

Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
yesterday
#Celtics reserves come in and get outscored 26-9 in 10 minutes by #Wizards reserves.


Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
#Celtics bench players have a -2.5 net rating through 3 games (22nd). 52 pts per 100 (20th). 50.3% AST rate (27th). Even the DREB has been bad. 9.3 TOV% ranks 27th. Dead last in points - 15.3 per game. It’s not panic time, but it’s worth monitoring and tinkering with for Joe.


Horford with 8 points on 4-9, 5 rebounds in 16 minutes. Ok, not bad, but everybody else?

Hauser 2-9, 1-8 from 3, 8 rebounds, 3 offensive and a block. Yes, Sam is an excellent rebounder for his size but we all know that's not why he's in there, right? Sam is shooting .200 from 3 through 3 games.

Pritchard 0-8, 0-6 from 3. Pritchard is shooting .100 from 3 through 3 games. He had 7 rebounds. If we're talking about Pritchard's rebounding we're in trouble. He had 6 assists and 4 turnovers. That's 1.5:1, and that's not even bench point guard good. A PHENOMENAL preseason has turned into a nightmare of a regular season so far.

There's our top 8. There's our meat-and-potatoes. 5 great, 1 good, 2 sucky. Any games missed by one of those 5 and we have a big hole.

Luke has regressed. I can't really say I blame him, Joe didn't give him any minutes in preseason, he gave them all to Queta who was out with a sore right foot last night, but there he is. 10 minutes of uselessness.

Oshae came in for 10 minutes, tried to replicate his last game, and went 0-4 including 0-2 from 3. Why is a career 34% 3pt shooter taking 3s for half his shots? Has our 3-happy coaching staff given a green light for 3s to everybody?

Banton looked lost out there. Pritchard and Banton are why you don't get excited about preseason.


I was calling for Svi and/or Lamar last night to replace Sam.

Svi played 4 minutes, didn't do much, looked a step late on defense. He didn't anticipate a drive soon enough so he couldn't hold the line and seal his man off from the basket. Offensively he is a more complete player than Sam. His lone assist came when he was in the corner and got the ball. A defender came flying at him. He took a quick dribble to the right to get away and then when the top defender took a step towards him to help out he passed the ball to Sam on top for the 3 (which went in). Svi could have taken that 3, easily, but he made the extra pass and that's why he's a more complete offensive player than Sam.

Lamar came in and did, in my opinion, very well. Only 4 minutes, like Svi, but he was 2-2 with a +1. 2 rebounds. He had 3 turnovers but, to be honest, I don't remember them. I just remember how sloppy we were overall. I don't understand why Lamar and Svi were the last players off the bench. I'm trying to give Joe time, trying not to remember last year, but I don't understand this.

18 turnovers. 4 by PP, 3 by Lamar, 2 by Luke for half of them. If there's a redeeming value in this it's that 5 of them came from players who, for good and bad, won't be playing much but 18 is too many.


Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 7 hours ago
It only took six days, but the Celtics are the only unbeaten team left in the eastern conference


Next game on Wednesday at home vs Indy.


Bob


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The starters looked dominant and the great thing is they are only going to get better.

I don't want to over react but the bench is simply not good. I still think PP will improve and be a solid rotation player, he's just in a funk right now. However, except for Horford of course, I just see a lot of question marks and inconsistency. We really need someone to step up and contribute on a game to game basis. Stevens showed some grit, maybe he's a possibility. Svi can really shoot, if Hauser doesn't pick it up, he deserves a shot. I hope Queta gets healthy because Luke is just horrible right now.

(5+1) = W

This was a fun scrimmage level game to see.

This team has a legit post offense with KP and that is something that has been missing for a very long time.

Our bench was afforded an opportunity to play extended minutes during the 4th QTR.  CJ wants to give everyone a chance but this looked like a smorgasbord of ill fitting parts that was thrown together.  Banton and Stevens got their first looks and it is easy to understand how difficult it must have been for those guys to perform well.

What may be of more significance is our 2 rotation guys PP and SH.  They have played in every game alongside starters and both of them are struggling.  When paired with all the bench guys they do not look like players that have been on the Celtics for several years.

A 3 game sample size does not make for any meaningful statistical inference.  We should give this experiment more time.

I have been closely watching Sam launch his 3 pointers.  Is it me or is he shooting the ball on the way up?  It certainly looks that way to me.  PP wants to be a spark plug off the bench and seems to be pressing to do things.  He just needs to relax a bit.

I do not know if more games will resolve the lack of bench production.  We need a bell cow off the bench.  

I would like to see Svi and Stevens get more run however CJ does not want to diminished the confidence of PP and SH.  I think he will let this string playout for a while.  I have locked myself into a 10 game trial period.  Play good or bad let those guys (PP and SH) get consistent rotation minutes (16.3 MPG)

Yes.  This was the perfect game and team to try to get the bench some run and Joe did just that.  The fact that WAS shaved off half of a 38-point lead while the bench was out there is alarming, but the bench will produce just like the mantra for making money investing.  It's time IN the market, not timing the market.  

The bench just needs to play together.  And by letting 19 points come off and still winning by 19 says a lot about where this bench is currently but it's not the end of the world.  We don't know what Brad has planned or if another addition or trade is in the works but this bench should get lots of time together because of what we saw against a bottom feeder.  Most of the league is bottom feeders.  There are a few haves and many have nots.  

I don't recall how quickly the 2007-08 bench took to develop coming out of the gate but it wasn't long, if this is indeed the one Brad is going to stick with.

Yes it took Doogie a while to get 8 but he got 8 points and 8 rebounds.  That's almost a double/double so let's lighten up on Doogie.  He's getting there.  Points are going to be very hard to come by and if you don't come out smokin' hot, the ball is not going to find you and you will find yourself blowing 39 point leads.  While there is no such thing as too much firepower, when there are only 5 on the court at a time...things do get crowded.

All in all, this was a breather game.  Things should pick up come Wednesday against IND in Boston.  With Boston and MIL each sending a message this week to MIA that, "Haha, yes you caught us with our pants down in the 2023 Playoffs, but that shoot ain't happenin' again," both teams are clearly ready to more forward with the task at hand and subsequent collision course for the ECF.    

So currently only 3 teams left undefeated, DEN, DAL and us.  No chicken counting here.  On to Wednesday's game.

db

P.S. I did have to adjust my TV and make sure I was watching the Celtics as the first 100 plays went into the post and in for layups. That's a major realization vs. the just keep shooting 3's til the cows come home of recent season's past. Scary for the opposition. Deal with it. I never thought I would use the words inside-out again but here I am.

Bob


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