The day of the NBA in honor of Martin Luther King started with a duel between Celtics and Pelicans that also meant the possibility of seeing the Hernangómez brothers with minutes. At the end of the 48 minutes there was no sign of them on the TD Garden floor in a match that started on one side, fell on the other and in which the least usual were not even taken out, even though the distance was around the fifteen goals in the last strip of the final quarter. Juancho and Willy had to make do with the conversation prior to the crash, nothing to see inside him. The locals prevailed despite the loss of Robert Williams, doing a good job in the second half and minimizing the errors that led them to see themselves with -17 before the break.
The role of the Spanish brothers remains in question in the respective teams. Boston had a great time choosing Nesmith, who had his share of fame at the time when they played the best, and Green tried only Hayes as a backup center even though his performance was not brilliant.
The ability of Valanciunas (22 + 14) to punish the Celtics without Williams, their intimidator in the area, was nullified when the team closed more defensively and opened the field in attack. They are simple instructions, but they are not easy to comply with, especially when the scoreboard gets so uphill. Tatum had 27 and Brown and Schröder had 23 points apiece to hold off the unpredictable Pelicans. For Ime Udoka’s team, this represents the fourth victory in the last five games, overcoming an evening full of traps and the feeling that the almost embarrassing image they offered in the first quarter of the season has been slightly improved.
Udoka tried Al Horford and Grant Williams helping each other out to prevent Valanciunas from spinning both inside and out. Well, neither inside nor outside did they face him in the early stages. The Lithuanian knew how to look for spaces when he arrived, dragging from behind to throw only in Josh Hart’s transitions, and with that and Ingram’s good start, which would fade little by little to show that it is a good scale of what are these Pelicans, gap was opened. These 17 points of advantage came in the second quarter. Green failed to leave Jonas sitting too long and Boston gave a little jerk before heading to the locker room to rest. That, unimportant on another day, had its incidence. With the good streak with which the Celtics began the second half, they were already blowing on the opponent’s neck.
The Pels sank as soon as Valanciunas left the field again to rest. Hayes wasn’t as scary on defense and didn’t do as much damage on offense. With the European center they had taken another leap so as not to run out of advantage, but that ended with him on the bench. Brown and Tatum had already won the game on the wings and Schröder, with a lopsided triple, was the one who put the Massachusetts team ahead on the counter. Graham wanted to react, but Nesmith closed the door with two actions in a row that included a kill against Herbet Jones. The 13-2 run was too much for New Orleans, which did not get to wave the white flag but did slow down when they saw that the rival had passed them on the right.