Celtics blow out Lakers for fourth straight win: 8 takeaways

Jaylen Brown and the Celtics demolished a shorthanded model of their best rivals, claiming a 126-105 victory over the Lakers on Friday.

Listed below are the takeaways.

The Celtics are good.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge on the outset who wasn’t in Boston on Friday: Luka Doncic, who was in Slovenia to be current for the delivery of his second youngster. We additionally want to notice that when LeBron James scored on Friday, he was cheered sarcastically, as a result of it was the youthful Bronny version, not his extra well-known (and, in Boston, extra hated) father who spent one in all his final—maybe his precise final—journey to Boston as a participant on the bench in avenue garments.

However the Celtics made positive that Friday’s sport was not concerning the Lakers proper from the opening tip. The indicators have been there for weeks for anybody paying consideration, however any nationwide fan of the NBA tuning in to an enormous rivalry sport on a Friday night time noticed the Celtics put collectively their fifth wire-to-wire win of the season, with only a small blip of a Lakers run within the third and fourth quarters that briefly made the sport extra attention-grabbing.

The Celtics made the announcement to the broader basketball world that they honestly are a very good staff. Not “good for a staff lacking Jayson Tatum,” however good, full cease.

How good they’re remains to be unclear at this stage. Six of the Celtics’ final seven video games have been towards groups with successful information, and they’re 6-1 in that stretch, however their wins over the Lakers and Magic include asterisks resulting from harm points.

However the wins over the Pistons and Knicks had been as actual as they get. The Celtics are a flawed roster from a building standpoint, however there’s nothing significantly complicated about why they’re successful video games: They’ve a number of good gamers, they’re well-coached, they’re taking pictures effectively, and the nice gamers have discovered mitigate their weak factors and play collectively effectively.

A lot more durable exams lie forward than a back-to-back towards one of many worst Wizards groups in current reminiscence (which is saying quite a bit!) adopted by a Lakers staff lacking Doncic and James, however the factor about simple exams is you continue to should move them, and the Celtics handed Friday’s with a flourish.

Jaylen Brown is embracing the ‘boring’ work.

Brown wasn’t as sensible on Friday as he was in his final outing—the Celtics’ victory over the Knicks at TD Backyard on Tuesday—however he nonetheless led the staff in scoring with yet one more 30-point outing to go together with eight rebounds and eight assists. His utilization is third-highest within the NBA at 36.6, in response to Cleansing the Glass, and he’s aiding on 23.9 p.c of his staff’s photographs, which is within the 98th percentile league-wide.

The standard of the passing goes up too. With 9:04 left within the third, Brown dribbled round a display screen from Neemias Queta on the prime of the important thing to his proper, went behind his again to chop again to the left, noticed Austin Reaves go away Jordan Walsh within the nook and whirled to move to a wide-open Walsh, then did the uncommon Steph Curry turnaway as a passer as Walsh took his time and canned the triple.

A 30-point sport ought to by no means be sniffed at, however Brown’s excellence is beginning to turn out to be regular.

“I feel the expectation degree has all the time been the identical in my mind,” he stated afterward. “Simply come out and compete and maximize our potential and sort of go from there. Don’t deal with the top consequence. Deal with what you management, that’s in entrance of you. That’s successful every possession, being the more durable taking part in staff, all that good things.

“It sounds boring, however that’s the kind of stuff that results in constructing a very good staff.”

Brown has but to overlook the playoffs in his nine-year NBA profession. If anybody would know what results in constructing a very good staff, it’s him.

The Celtics made a ton of 3-pointers.

This season, the Celtics have been quite a bit higher (and have taken much more photographs) from mid-range than they did in earlier seasons below Joe Mazzulla, which is basically a product of Brown’s All-NBA caliber scoring.

Friday’s sport, nevertheless, was a throwback to final yr: The Celtics made 24 3-pointers whole on 45 makes an attempt, good for 53.3 p.c. The Lakers had been stable as effectively, 14-for-35 (40 p.c), however a bonus of 10 made 3-pointers is a dying knell within the NBA.

Jordan Walsh had yet one more nice sport.

Sooner or later, we might want to cease remarking on Walsh having good video games simply because he had them, however as we speak isn’t that day.

Walsh, who went 8-for-8 from the ground towards the Wizards on Thursday, continued his sizzling taking pictures, ending 6-for-7 from the ground and 4-for-5 from three with 17 factors. He made his first triple and powered in an extremely troublesome and-one earlier than he lastly missed his first shot in additional than 24 hours, and early within the fourth quarter, he hit a sneaky large triple because the shot clock expired with the Celtics main by 15 after the Lakers made a mildly threatening overture on the Celtics’ huge lead.

The defensive finish, nevertheless, was the place Walsh actually excelled as soon as once more. He made every little thing troublesome for Austin Reaves within the first half—the lone Lakers star who dressed for Friday’s sport—by flying everywhere in the flooring and hounding him relentlessly. Walsh remains to be a bit of foul-prone, which is an occupational hazard of being a hyper-aggressive defender recognized for placing his nostril the place his defender doesn’t need it to be, however he completed Friday’s sport a team-high +28.

All people chill a bit of bit about Walsh, although.

Jaylen Brown, nevertheless, doesn’t need Walsh to get too excited.

“Actually, it’s been nice,” Brown stated. “I don’t wish to enhance his head up an excessive amount of. I don’t need him to begin getting cute. He’s obtained to nonetheless care for the main points, however he’s been doing a very good job, however we’re going to wish him to keep up that, so y’all don’t enhance his head up an excessive amount of.”

Mazzulla, in the meantime, famous that the Celtics’ taking pictures most likely isn’t sustainable.

“I feel we’re undoubtedly going by way of a stretch of taking pictures luck, that’s for positive, that we weren’t going by way of at first of the season,” Mazzulla stated. “We’re undoubtedly taking pictures the ball higher than we had been. In order that does make every little thing appear higher.”

Truthful sufficient on each fronts. Don’t get cute, Jordan Walsh.

Derrick White is likely to be coming round.

In his final 5 video games, Derrick White is taking pictures 49.4 p.c and 40.6 p.c from three.

Nearly nothing else has modified. He’s averaging basically the identical variety of assists, rebounds and turnovers. His protection remains to be usually wonderful.

However a lot concerning the Celtics’ offense adjustments when White makes photographs, and on Friday, he was 7-for-14 from the ground and 5-for-10 from three.

“The factor about him is, no matter if he’s making photographs or not, he performs with the extent of vitality, pleasure and element, and like each different sport, he will get a kind of full-court back-tip steals in transition,” Mazzulla stated. “So he doesn’t enable that stuff to trouble him. Simply obtained to proceed to play and execute.

“He’s doing a very good job of it.”

The Lakers had been additionally with out Marcus Good.

Marcus Good has missed the previous few video games with a again pressure, however he made the journey to Boston and hung out with fans before the game. After the sport, he greeted and chatted with Jaylen Brown for a while. 

Good’s highway has been rocky for the reason that Celtics dealt him to the Grizzlies, unceremoniously sending him out the door as a part of the three-team deal that landed them Kristaps Porzingis. Since then, Good performed sparingly in two seasons with the Grizzlies and Wizards earlier than the Wizards purchased him out, clearing the way in which for him to signal with the Lakers.

Typically the match between a participant and a metropolis simply is smart—extra sense than that participant in one other metropolis. Good in Boston all the time felt like a wedding that labored, even when it was a bit of rocky.

The Celtics have fairly successfully changed Good—they’ve gamers who purchase in totally on the defensive finish, they usually actually have a participant in Walsh who makes equally instinctive defensive highlights. A guard who performs with Good’s reckless abandon additionally doesn’t mission significantly effectively into his 30s—Good performed 54 whole video games in his earlier two seasons.

However whereas the Celtics won’t significantly want Good, followers are actually excused in the event that they miss him.

What’s subsequent

After sweeping a tricky three-games-in-four-nights stretch that included the Cavaliers and the Lakers, the Celtics have yet one more troublesome sport from a scheduling standpoint after they tackle the Raptors in Toronto at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.

After that, they lastly have some respite: Three video games off earlier than they tackle the Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks on Thursday in Milwaukee. They then have three extra video games off earlier than the Pistons go to Boston subsequent Monday.