The Celtics have quickly shaken off the bad feelings of the overtime loss to the Warriors. Mazzulla’s men have made the Kings pay for their losses, whom they have defeated by a resounding 119-144 with which to once again show their dominance and take advantage of the defeat of the Timberwolves to position themselves as leaders of the league.
Boston offered an overwhelming version of attack from start to finish, turning the locals into victims of a bombardment of triples from which there was no bunker to take cover. With a 22/42 in outside shooting, they imposed a scoring rhythm that was impossible to follow for Mike Brown’s team, which held close during the first half but dissolved in the second until the differences reached painful limits.
With a partial score of 24-39 that put the visitor’s advantage above 20 points, the match was practically sealed in the third quarter, and from there we just had to wait for the final horn to sound. Before he did, Massachusetts even went as far as 30 up, demonstrating their enormous amount of resources on a night in which they allowed themselves to rest Jayson Tatum and Al Horford.
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They were not missed too much, because when five players reach 20 points it is difficult to remember that your superstar is applauding their actions from the bench. Jaylen Brown and Derrick White, with 28 each, led the team offensively, perfectly accompanied by Kristaps Porzingis’ 24, Jrue Holiday’s 21 and Payton Pritchard’s 20. In this way, five Celtics men reached twenty for the first time since 1987, when Larry Bird, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish did so against the Nets.
The list was much shorter in the Kings, in which De’Aaron Fox tried to save the night with his 29 points but did not have enough company to achieve it. In fact, with 26 of his goals at half-time he was almost single-handedly responsible for keeping the match even, but once his exhibition came to an end the hosts had no response. Domantas Sabonis and Keegan Murray, with 13 each, followed him but from far away, which made it impossible to contain the Celtics and ended up leaving the match resolved when there were still many minutes left before the final horn sounded.
(Portography: Greg Fiume/Getty Images)
2023-12-21 09:00:00
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