The Boston Celtics failed to avenge Jayson Tatum’s Team USA benchings against Steve Kerr and the Golden State Warriors back in November.
Both teams returned for their second and final clash of the regular season, this time in the Bay Area, and this time with a drastically different result. Kerr felt the brunt of Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics playing to their championship potential and it led to a dead silent crowd at Chase Center by halftime and until the final buzzer.
Boston, in the meantime, became the third-quickest team in the NBA to reach the 30-win plateau, kicking off its four-game road trip on a strong note.
Here are three studs and three duds from Boston’s 125-85 win over Golden State:
STUDS
Kristaps Porzingis
Boston’s 7-footer took full advantage of Golden State’s failure to overcome the absence of Draymond Green with an undersized lineup.
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Porzingis gave the Warriors too many issues to navigate on both ends of the floor as the 29-year-old scored 18 points on 6-of-13 shooting with seven rebounds and two assists. Golden State couldn’t guard Boston’s X-factor regardless of where Porzingis stood on the floor, and the inability to counter came with a hefty price for Kerr’s Warriors.
Jayson Tatum
The Celtics needed a wake-up performance and Tatum, the man of the night, led the charge on that front.
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Tatum scored a team-leading 22 points, falling just short of a double-double with nine rebounds and seven assists. The five-time All-Star also tallied a pair of steals, making up for an uncharacteristic 3-for-10 performance from 3-point range and most importantly, teaching Kerr a lesson.
Golden State was so far behind that Mazzulla capitalized on the added luxury of getting to remove Tatum from the game at the end of the third quarter.
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Boston’s “Mazzulla-Ball” strategy
The Celtics entered the Martin Luther King Day battle ranking 26th in the league in 3-point shooting (32.7%) over the course of their previous five games.
There aren’t many teams that’ll falter to Boston when those are the results, as the team learned amid its 6-4 stretch. Yet, the Celtics found their stride and returned to their usual form, shooting 20-of-48 (41.7%) from beyond the arc. It was a matter of time before the C’s shot the ball in the fashion that catapulted them to a title last season and the Warriors felt the wrath of that potential coming to life.
Boston improved to 14-1 on nights when the team hits 20-plus threes.
DUDS
Andrew Wiggins
The Warriors couldn’t rely on Stephen Curry alone, and Wiggins failed tremendously at filling the role as his right-hand man.
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Wiggins shot an abysmal 1-for-11 from the field and 0-for-4 from three before finishing with a weak four-point performance. To make matters worse, Wiggins missed multiple layup attempts and never picked himself up to give Golden State a chance at giving Boston a run for its money at the very least.
Dennis Schroder
The former Celtics guard and recent Warriors trade acquisition, too, failed to support Curry with any sort of spark offensively.
Schroder scored seven points on 3-of-8 shooting from the floor with zero rebounds and one assist in 17 minutes before Kerr pulled the plug. The 12-year veteran was no threat whatsoever to Boston’s defense and couldn’t uplift Golden State’s dead-as-a-dog offensive momentum that generated 36 points from the starters.
Golden State’s 3-point shooting
It’s hard to imagine a Curry-led team shooting its way off the floor, but that’s what happened to Golden State.
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The Warriors countered “Mazzulla-Ball” by shooting 14-of-53 from 3-point range (26.4%) and giving the Celtics an added advantage to drown them on the scoreboard. Curry’s 18 points and 4-of-12 showing from three wasn’t nearly enough either and led the Western Conference squad to take the walk of shame back to the players’ tunnel.
