A Payton Pritchard 30-piece led the Boston Celtics to a 125-111 home win over the Chicago Bulls in the teams’ second matchup of the season and their first game of group play for the NBA Cup. The game caps off a four-game win streak for the C’s, who are now 4-1.
The Celtics and Bulls are in East Group C, which also includes the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, and Washington Wizards.
Group play will last 4 games, with each team playing each other once, before NBA Cup knockout rounds begin on Friday,
Dec. 4. Five Eastern Conference teams will make it to the knockout rounds, including the winners of all three groups and two wild cards.
The Wizards started off a 10-game slate of group play games tonight with a 95-79 win over the Hornets, so the Wizards and Celtics are now tied for the lead of East Group C with a 1-0 record. Tiebreakers will be decided by point differential. The Celtics are at +14 while the Wizards are at +16.
Boston’s starting lineup tonight included Derrick White, Jordan Walsh, Paul George, Jayson Tatum, and Mitchell Robinson. Devin Carter, who has yet to play this season, remained out with mononucleosis.
The Bulls started John Giddey, Norman Powell, Matas Buzelis, Caleb Wilson, and Jalen Smith. Chicago was missing Nic Claxton and Dailyn Swain.
The game got started off with a flurry of scoring. Both Boston and Chicago scored on their first three possessions, with all of three Celtics buckets coming at the rim. In fact, the C’s first five made field goals came from the paint. Tatum uncapped the basket from distance with a three-pointer almost 4 minutes into the game to take an early 5-point lead.
While George made an early impact with his defense, the Bulls had a hard time stopping the Celtics’ offense, which came to play. Tatum led the way by hitting his first four shots for 9 quick points. By the time George snagged a bad pass from Giddey and threw down the open dunk, Boston was up 22-12.
The Bulls initially kept the lead from blowing up with 8 free throws, but Neemias Queta, Hugo Gonzalez, Sam Hauser, and Payton Pritchard came off the bench with a gusto and added to Boston’s momentum. With 3 minutes to go in the opening frame, the Celtics were up 33-18, with 4 steals and 0 turnovers.
Pritchard — who appeared to be on a personal mission to crush the Bulls — added to the team’s steals total soon after the break, nailed a three-pointer a minute later, buried an and-1 right after, got another steal on the way back, and hit a layup with about a minute left in the quarter. JT smoked a layup during a final shot situation, but the C’s finished the frame with a 44-25 lead, the team’s best opening quarter of the young season. Boston shot 13-15 on two-point shot attempts during the quarter.
Boston kept its foot on the gas early in the second quarter. Robinson bullied the Bulls bigs down low for a couple well-fought offensive rebounds and putbacks, and Pritchard made Powell dance before knocking down a sweet step-back three-pointer to get to 13 points on the night.
The Pritchard show wasn’t over, though. George got in on the party with a deep three-pointer about halfway through the second quarter, then got a steal and put up another attempt from the perimeter. While he didn’t connect, Pritchard got the offensive layup and put it back up for an easy layup, then got the ball back following a White steal and knocked down a 26-footer, giving the Celtics a 63-35 lead with 6:41 to go in the half.
Boston’s lead reached 30 for the first time after Tatum hit a smooth turnaround jump shot with less than 5 minutes left, but the Bulls scored the next 5 points. Pritchard stopped the mini run by burying a couple free throws, but Tatum reinflated the lead with a finger roll layup and three-pointer on back-to-back possessions to put the C’s up 76-44 with less than 2 minutes left in the second quarter.
The Celtics had a chance to tie the Spurs with the highest-scoring half of the season, at 80 points, but finished just shy following a couple Tatum turnovers to end the quarter. Nevertheless, Boston entered the half with a commanding 29-point lead, 78-49.
Pritchard led the C’s in scoring over the first half, with 20 points on 7-10 shooting from the field. He also racked up 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.
Tatum finished the half with 16 points on 7-11 shooting, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists.
On the other end, Buzelis and Powell led the way for the Bulls, with 11 points apiece.
Robinson opened the second half with the Celtics’ first block of the night, but the Bulls scored a couple buckets to cut the lead back down to 24, leading Head Coach Joe Mazzulla to call an early timeout. Coming out of the break, White scored a layup for Boston’s first points of the half and Tatum and Robinson connected soon after for an impressive alley-oop, but the team’s rhythm from the first half had been all but lost.
On the other hand, the Bulls kept attacking the C’s and hit four three-pointers by the halfway point of the third quarter, bringing the lead down to 86-66. While Boston had become complacent with such a lead, Chicago upped its energy and defensive effort, forcing the Celtics to keep up.
Luckily, the C’s got going again under that pressure and finished the quarter with a 25-point lead, 99-74. Nevertheless, it was the team’s worst quarter of the night, as it scored only 21 points.
Despite all the talk about running up the point differential, the Celtics allowed 6 quick points over the first 2 minutes of the fourth quarter and failed to score from the field until Tatum hit a tough step-back jump shot with 9:38 to go to put Boston up 102-80.
Tatum and George led the way for the C’s over the next few minutes, but the Bulls — especially Caleb Wilson, who couldn’t miss in the second half — remained feisty and refused to let Boston build its lead back up. Halfway through the final frame, the Celtics’ lead was down to 19, 111-92.
While Tatum went to the bench after receiving his 5th personal foul, as well as a technical foul, with 5 minutes to go in the contest, Boston didn’t let the game get out of hand in his absence. Pritchard stepped up and drew a couple shooting fouls, hitting all 4 free throws, to maintain a 20-point Celtics lead with about 2 minutes left to go.
At that point, the Bulls emptied their bench. Boston already had an all-bench lineup on the court, but sent out Chris Cenac Jr. and Ron Harper Jr. to finish the game.
Pritchard finished the game with 30 points on 52.9% shooting from the field, along with 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.
Tatum scored 26 points on 45% shooting from the field and racked up 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
George finished with 18 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, and 3 steals.
Wilson finished the game with 23 points on 6 made three-pointers, both of which led the Bulls.
Powell and Buzelis finished with 16 and 14 points, respectfully.
Boston will face the Orlando Magic next, at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Kia Center.
The Celtics’ next NBA Cup group play matchup will against the Hornets at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at the Spectrum Center.
