Jayson Tatum came back from a rest game with a head of steam, and the Charlotte Hornets stood no chance with five notable injuries.
Tatum’s 34 points (24 of which he scored in the first half) led the Boston Celtics to a 119-80 win over the Hornets in the teams’ first matchup of the season and Boston’s first stop in a 4-game road trip. The win gives the C’s a 7-2 record on the season and an NBA Cup group play record of 2-0 in East Group C.
Boston now leads the group by record, and sports a +53 scoring
differential, which leads the group by 44 points. The winner of each group, plus two wild cards from each conference, will make it to the NBA Cup’s knockout rounds.
The Celtics starting squad tonight included Derrick White, Jordan Walsh, Paul George, Jayson Tatum, and Neemias Queta. Boston’s injury report was clear.
The Hornets started Coby White, Brandon Miller, Grayson Allen, Naz Reid, and Ryan Kalkbrenner. Kon Knueppel, Moussa Diabate, and former Celtics Grant Williams and Dennis Schroder, sat out with injuries. Miller also left the game at the half with right groin soreness.
Tatum started hot with an easy three-pointer off a screen, as the Hornets opened up the game with Reid guarding him. But he did not spam that matchup off the bat. Instead, the opening minutes were defined by energy and activity. George hit a three-pointer after Queta rebounded a midrange clunker. George and Queta both stuffed a couple Hornets shot attempts. White got a defensive rebound, ran the length of the floor and hit a transition 3 to give the C’s a 9-2 lead three minutes into the game.
White and JT kept the momentum going for a few more minutes. White scored on back-to-back and-1s, including a 4-point play, to get 7 points in 15 seconds of game time. Tatum scored the next two buckets and put Boston up 21-7 with less than 7 minutes to go. At that point, the C’s had connected on 5-7 three-point attempts.
However, the offense started dragging after that as the Hornets seemed to settle in. Payton Pritchard hit a sweet step-back three-pointer, and the Celtics’ activity didn’t slow, but shots stopped falling so effortlessly and the Hornets started hitting some of theirs. In response, Coach Joe Mazzulla called a timeout and subbed in Baylor Scheierman and Sam Hauser to inject some offense. Scheierman immediately made an impact by splashing a three-pointer, then drew a foul on the Hornets to get the ball back for the C’s soon after.
Luckily for the Celtics, Tatum stayed hot. He drove to the basket for a couple nice layups, got to the line and hit a pair of free throws, got an and-1 with another layup, then nailed a three-pointer. That wasn’t the end of it, though. Before the quarter ended, he assisted on a deep (and I mean DEEP) Hauser three-pointer, and got the ball to Scheierman for an attempt from the arc at the buzzer. Scheierman missed the shot, but it was a quality look.
By the end of the opening frame, Tatum already had 18 points and Boston led Charlotte 40-20.
The C’s stayed active in the second quarter despite the big lead. Mitchell Robinson opened the frame with a tough finish through contact inside (of course, he missed his free throw) and was all over the boards. Without Tatum, who regularly takes a rest at the start of second quarters, the team struggled to make its shots — but so did the Hornets. Both teams scored a combined 3 points over the first 3 minutes of the second quarter.
Boston began to break out of that lull around the 8-minute mark of the second frame, when White hit a three-pointer. That shot seemed to take the lid off the basket for the C’s, as George cashed in on a floater soon after. George then hit a three-pointer, which Luka Garza followed on the next possession with another 3. Almost halfway through the quarter, the Celtics led 53-25.
JT came back into the game with 5:34 left to go in the second frame, and after about a minute, hit a beautiful step-back 3 to keep the offense rolling. It was the first of three straight offensive possessions with made 3s, as Pritchard and Tatum hit on the team’s next 2 three-point attempts. Those helped secure Boston’s first 30-point lead of the game, as the C’s led 62-31 with 3 minutes left to go in the half.
Naz Reid hit back-to-back shots to cut into the lead, but White hit a couple of his own and Robinson got a block that led to an open Hauser 3, leaving the Celtics with an imposing 70-39 lead at the half. Boston won the quarter 30-19.
Jayson Tatum, who was red-hot in the first half, racked up 24 points on 57.1% shooting from the field and 5-8 shooting from three-point range. He also had 4 rebounds and 6 assists before the break.
Boston’s second-leading scorer was Derrick White, who had 18 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal at the half. No other Celtic had more than 8 points, but the team as a whole shot 54.8% from three-point range.
On the other end of the court, Naz Reid led Charlotte in scoring at the half with 10 points. The Hornets shot only 28.3% from the field and 21.7% from three-point range over the first half.
The Celtics maintained its energetic defense from the first half, but its offense briefly stuttered to open the second. Nevertheless, Queta got the scoring going with a couple nice buckets, including a hook shot and an impressive one-handed alley-oop on a pass from JT. Tatum continued to make his mark on the game by hitting a couple free throws, then assisting on a tough Walsh dunk and-1. Four minutes into the third quarter, the C’s had a 79-45 lead.
The Celtics didn’t let themselves to become complacent with such a lead. Tatum, Pritchard, and Scheierman kept the offense churning, while the defense stayed active and refused to allow Charlotte’s offense to get going. JT was unstoppable driving to the rim and reached 30 points on a layup with 4:26 remaining in the third. Robinson threw down a couple hefty alley-oops, the second of which put the game out of reach entirely, as the C’s had a 94-53 lead with less than 2 minutes to go in the frame.
By the end of the third quarter, which the Celtics won 26-18, Boston led by 39 points.
The C’s opened the fourth with Pritchard, Hauser, Hugo Gonzalez, Mike Conley, and Luka Garza on the floor. While the Hornets scored the first 4 points of the quarter, Hauser and Pritchard splashed a couple three-pointers that inspired Charlotte to call a timeout, raise the white flag, and send in its reserves. Boston subbed in Ron Harper Jr. for Pritchard, but otherwise kept the same squad on the court to run up the lead.
Without Pritchard, Gonzalez and RHJ led the Celtics offense. After Gonzalez hit a 3 with 5:35 to go in the final frame, the Celtics had a 112-67 lead. It was such an insurmountable lead that NBA.com’s NBA Cup standings page showed Boston’s group play record as 2-0 about halfway through the fourth quarter.
The C’s offense was a little clunky the rest of the way, but a couple three-pointers from Walsh and Garza inflated the lead to 118-74 with about 2 minutes left in the game.
Tatum finished the game with 34 points on 56.3% shooting from the field and 11-11 free throws, 7 rebounds, 9 assists, and a steal.
White failed to score a single point in the second half, but still finished as Boston’s second-leading scorer for the night, with 18 points. The only other Celtic to finish in double digits was Pritchard, who had 12 points.
The team as a whole shot 45.8% from the field and 54.5% from three-point range. Boston’s 24 made three-pointers is a new NBA Cup record.
Reid led the Hornets with 14 points, while Sion James had 11 points off the bench. Overall, Charlotte shot 29.3% from the floor and 22% from behind the arc.
Boston’s next game will be against the Milwaukee Bucks at 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. The road trip will then take the C’s to Philadelphia and Toronto.
The C’s next NBA Cup group play game won’t be until Tuesday, Nov. 24, when they will face the Wizards. It will be the Celtics’ third of four group play matches before knockout rounds begin on Friday, Dec. 4.
