Everything you need to know about the Celtics' win over the Lakers, with BSJ insight and analysis.
IN A NUTSHELL
The Celtics stormed out of the locker room, building a 39-17 lead on nearly 64% shooting after the first quarter. They cooled off a bit but pushed the lead up to 29 in the second, but they got a little sloppy, and it settled at 23 at halftime. The Celtics looked content to go shot-for-shot in the third quarter, and the Lakers got the lead to 15, but that was as close as it would get.
HEADLINES
- No juice to the matchup: Celtics-Lakers is always an event … well, almost. This game lacked a significant amount of star power as the Lakers sat LeBron James on the back-to-back and Luka Dončić was still in Slovenia for the birth of his baby. Marcus Smart even missed the game due to injury, so there wasn’t even any fun to be had with him.
The result was an early barrage by the Celtics, followed by significant stretches of quiet as they played mostly even the rest of the way. This game felt more like a mid-January game against the Wizards than it did a nationally televised rivalry game.
- Hot night from deep: The Celtics' 3-point shooting has arrived. They shot 24-45 from 3, a cool 53.3%. Every time the Lakers tried to make some noise, someone on the team hit a 3. There were certainly some stretches where the Celtics' offense probably devolved into hunting those shots, but they were also falling.
- Four in a row: The Celtics now have their longest winning streak of the season and the longest non-Thunder streak in the NBA.
“I think the best part was it’s our fifth game in seven nights,” Sam Hauser said. “We came out and I thought we were the harder-playing team right from the jump. Obviously we got off to a great start and maintained that throughout the game. Sometimes you have to beat the schedule a little bit and this has been a tough week with travel and a lot of games. So I think more so than anything you just have to dig down deep in games like that and bring it out of you.”
They’ve won nine of 11 games and they lead the NBA with five wire-to-wire wins.
The best part is this will go down as a win over a “good” team since the Lakers came in at 16-5, which means they have tied the Pistons for the most wins in the NBA (8) against teams .500 or better.
TURNING POINT
There never really was one. They opened the game on an 11-3 run, they were doubling the Lakers up at the 4:51 mark (24-12), and it was 39-17 by the end of the first quarter. Aside from a third-quarter lull that got it to 15, they were never really threatened.
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