The Celtics have taken the roller out again and the Wizards have been the victim. The Boston squad had no mercy on the people from the capital during their visit to the TD Garden and won by an overwhelming 144-102, confirming itself as one of the teams to fear from the East and making it clear that the two defeats a few days ago were not are cause for concern. Udoka’s men recover second place in the conference with this result, although the distance with the Heat suggests that this is now their highest qualifying aspiration.
Washington was practically never a threat to Massachusetts, although the truth is that it was not until the second half when the game really broke down. After a relatively even first half, the local superiority became absolute around the locker room, and with a 20-2 run at the start of the last quarter, what was already being a rather bulky score ended up becoming a beating.
Jaylen Brown finished as the game’s leading scorer with 32 points, followed by Jayson Tatum’s 22, figures they reached in less than 30 minutes. The enormous difference in the scoreboard allowed Udoka to rest his starters in the fourth set, which also gave the rotation men the opportunity to stand out, among whom Derrick White and Grant Williams, with 17 and 16 points respectively, shone more that no one In total, 13 local players had minutes, and 11 of them managed to score.
“We have to keep testing rotations and see what works best for us,” said the local coach, who thanked those minutes without any trouble on the scoreboard. “Right now we are thinking about ourselves and how we can play better, not who our opponent is going to be or which side of the draw we can fall on.”
On the other hand, Kristaps Porzingis and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope stood out with 17 points each in a Wizards that soon gave in to the power of the hosts. The future of the season has been showing the shortcomings of a team that, after a good start, has clearly gone downhill, and that will have to focus on how it can grow for next year.
(Cover photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)