Boston Celtics
Tatum put together his best game of the season on Sunday against the Hornets.
Jayson Tatum and a short-handed Celtics squad faced the red-hot Hornets in Charlotte on Sunday and claimed a comfortable 114-99 win.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum looked like a star again
There are still levels that Tatum can get to, and that should be very encouraging for the Celtics on a night like Sunday.
Tatum put together his best game of the season on Sunday — a masterful all-around performance in a return to last year’s role as the no-questions-asked first option. He cracked the 30s for the first time since he returned from injury with 32 points and shot an efficient 12-for-23 and 5-for-10 from deep. There were shades of his biggest games in his shooting performance — nights when he goes for 50 because he caught a heater and made eight 3-pointers — and after his struggles to find the range, the return of his jumper (and his ensuing strut when he makes a big one) is a nice sign for Celtics fans.
But, at his best, Tatum is much more than a scorer. With both Jaylen Brown and Derrick White sidelined, Tatum was the team’s top option as a distributor as well. He delivered with aplomb — eight assists and zero turnovers. He manipulated the Hornets’ defense, creating switches that favored the Celtics (especially against LaMelo Ball, which we will get to in a minute), and in desperation late in the game, the Hornets even threw a double-team at him. Predictably, that didn’t work: Tatum calmly allowed the double to arrive, then dished to Baylor Scheierman, who buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key.
There were still moments when Tatum looked a little awkward. He badly bricked a mid-range jumper in the first half as his footwork got tangled, and he hit nothing but backboard on a drive in the second half. For all of his prodigious talent, full fitness appears to be a bit of a work in progress.
Still, plays like this — where Tatum weaves and ducks between defenders, then uses his strength to hold off the contest and tosses in a layup off glass — suggest that he’s getting closer.
When Payton Pritchard gets a defender on his hip, it’s over
Late in the fourth quarter as the Celtics were putting the finishing touches on their comfortable win, Pritchard ran a pick-and-roll with Neemias Queta at the top of the key. The screen wasn’t particularly bone-crunching, but it was enough to get Josh Green stuck on Pritchard’s hip.
At that point, the play was essentially over.
Pritchard hits plenty of tough shots, but he makes these types of plays look shockingly easy. As Green tried to recover, Pritchard held him off with relative ease, then apparently decided to let him catch up, only to deliver a shoulder bump to knock Green off course. That gave Pritchard plenty of leverage for the layup.
On the next possession, the Celtics ran a very similar play (and pick-and-roll with a double screen), and, that time, the Hornets switched Tre Mann onto Pritchard. Once again, Pritchard battled until Mann was on his hip. Once again, Pritchard scored.
Unless you have elite length, Pritchard’s shoulder bump is almost automatic.
Pritchard had another big game, finishing with 28 points and six assists with efficient 10-for-18 shooting in a return to the starting lineup.
The Celtics hunted LaMelo Ball
The Celtics were determined to make Hornets star LaMelo Ball play defense.
Here’s an example.
Two things to note: First, the solid screen Tatum delivered, and the way he forced Ball into a matchup he never wanted. As the play develops, and it becomes clear that Ball is about to be stuck on an island, Miles Bridges starts to float to the top of the key.
As Tatum gets the ball, Bridges and Ball are actively executing a scram switch to save Ball from the matchup.
Tatum, however, had gotten a clean look at the rim by that point, and he buried the 3-pointer directly in Bridges’ face, giving him what appeared to be a “f*** out of here with that” for good measure.
Much has been made about a potential Celtics-Hornets showdown in the first round as the Celtics rumble toward the 2-seed. The Hornets are likely headed for the play-in, and given how hot they have been, it’s not a massive stretch to imagine them winning their way to a matchup with the Celtics.
The Hornets are one of the better stories of the season. Ball is a star, and he’s winning for the first time in his career. Kon Knueppel struggled on Sunday, but he’s a lethal shooter. Brandon Miller is a nice prospect. Coby White was a great pickup off the bench.
But, the Hornets have a fatal flaw that a team like the Celtics will swing at over and over: Defensive targets. In a playoff series, the Celtics are merciless attacking mismatches, and unless the Hornets are able to come up with some truly creative solutions, Tatum and Brown are going to be able to do a lot of damage.
Ron Harper Jr. looked great (then twisted his ankle)
The Celtics’ Stay Ready group increasingly just looks like a bunch of good NBA players.
In the first half of Sunday’s game, Ron Harper Jr. played extended minutes, scoring seven points on 3-for-3 shooting, including a tough layup in transition at the end of the first quarter that left Drew Carter and Brian Scalabrine ooh-ing and ahh-ing.
Harper twisted his ankle in the second quarter and was forced to leave the game. He returned later and was quiet the rest of the way, but he once again showed flashes of a genuinely useful role player.
Jordan Walsh got the start
Rather than putting Baylor Scheierman back in the starting lineup in Brown’s absence, Joe Mazzulla opted to start Walsh.
Walsh shot just 1-for-7, but he played — predictably — with energy and enthusiasm. His switchable defense was an important addition against a Charlotte offense that has scored more than 129 points per 100 possessions in the last two weeks.
The move may have been less about Walsh and more about keeping the Celtics’ rotations intact, since Scheierman appears to be the player whose rotation spot is closest to locked in as the postseason approaches.
Still, a starting nod was a nice vote of confidence for Walsh, who played well in a return after a number of DNP-CDs on Friday.
“50 wins in a gap year“
After the game, Jaylen Brown pointed out on social media that the Celtics just reached “50 wins in a gap year.”
The Celtics still have eight games remaining, and they have taken care of three incredibly hot opponents in a row by knocking off the Thunder, Hawks, and Hornets.
Meanwhile, the Knicks lost to the Thunder on Sunday, giving the Celtics a 2.5-game lead in the standings.
The Knicks still hold the tie-breaker, and with a head-to-head showdown looming, the 2-seed is far from locked.
The Celtics, however, had the third-hardest remaining schedule last week. Now, they have a three-game winning streak … and the 17th-hardest remaining strength of schedule.
What’s next
The Celtics will play the second night of a back-to-back on Monday against the Hawks in Atlanta, where Brown might return.
They will wrap up their road trip with games against the Heat and Bucks in Miami and Milwaukee respectively on Wednesday and Friday.
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