On December 4, the Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons played a stellar basketball game at TD Garden — a thrilling, back-and-forth affair that saw the two teams combine for 250 points and 41 made three-pointers. Just over a week later, Thursday night rematch on the same court yielded a vastly different result. The Celtics shrugged off an ugly first quarter to assume a comfortable advantage over the Pistons that they maintained throughout a game that largely lacked much for drama, and picked up their 20th win of the season with a 123-99 victory at home.
It was a balanced attack for the Celtics tonight, with six players recording double-figure scoring on the evening. Leading the way was a red-hot Payton Pritchard, who scored 27 points, dished 10 assists and drilled seven threes, outpacing a strong effort from Derrick White (23 points, seven threes).Kristaps Porzingis added 19 points, while Jaylen Brown scored just 14 but tacked on nine rebounds and six assist. For the Pistons, not much went right. They shot just 38% from the field before garbage time, including a dismal 6-of-34 from three-point range. Cade Cunningham led the way for Detroit, such as it was, with 18 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
The Celtics were short a fair bit of offensive punch, lacking the services of Jayson Tatum (knee) and Sam Hauser (adductor), the latter of whom recorded a season-high 20 points against Detroit just a week prior. Both absences were painfully evident in the early minutes of this game, as the Celtics struggled through some of the ugliest basketball they’ve played this season. They made just four of their first 18 shots from the field for the night, coughing up three turnovers in the process. After piling up 26 points in the first six minutes of last week’s matchup, it took them nearly the entire first quarter to do likewise tonight. They led the Pistons 27-16 after one quarter, on the strength of a 14-2 run.
Shorthanded on the wing and struggling to find a scoring rhythm, Boston leaded on its frontcourt to find an advantage against Detroit this evening. Porzingis took on the role of the volume scorer through the early scoring drought, but it was Luke Kornet who sparked the offense back into respectability with a game-high eight first quarter points off the bench, including a pair of exciting finishes at the rim. Neemias Queta even saw some early minutes as the fourth center on the depth chart, signaling that the Celtics saw their win coming from inside in a contest where Detroit appeared to be selling out to stop the three-pointer.
The Celtics’ early advantage was aided by a Detroit offense that seemed even more averse to scoring than Boston’s. The Pistons shot a ghastly sub-30% from the field in the first quarter and missed their first 13 three-pointers of the game. In the second quarter, though, the gears finally started to get into motion. Simone Fontecchio broke the three-point drought with a corner triple, part of a modest 13-6 start to the quarter for the Pistons that drew them back within two possessions of the Boston lead.
The Celtics were quick on the counterpunch. As the Pistons embarked on another three-point drought, an increasingly comfortable Boston offense rattled off a 10-0 run. Supercharged by a customarily energetic Pritchard (14 points, four threes in the first half), the Celtics looked far more comfortable creating off the dribble and started to bury Detroit under an onslaught of threes. They cracked the 30-point threshold in the second quarter, and entered the halftime break enjoying a 15-point advantage, 59-44.
It was a particularly interesting role for Brown in the first half this evening, as the Celtics’ star eschewed his customary role as a volume scorer to serve as more of a field general. He scored just four points in the first half, but dealt five assists and posted a team-high +20 plus-minus. Early in the second half, he cashed in on his first three-pointer of the game — remarkably, also his first attempt — but he finished with a modest 12 shot attempts for the game, taking a voluntary backseat to the rest of the Celtics’ offense.
Boston’s lead swelled to 20 points early in the third quarter, as they continued their hot streak from deep and recorded a freebie on a technical foul against Harris. Led by Brown and Porzingis, the Celtics settled into a methodical rhythm — crisp ball movement leading to open, efficient shots — and heavily outpaced the struggling Pistons. Prichard joined the second half scoring frenzy with a deep triple from the left wing late in the corner, and the Celtics were suddenly within arm’s reach of a 30-point lead in the final minute of the quarter. Ultimately, they’d enter the fourth with a 25-point edge, 93-68.
Naturally, there wasn’t much drama to the fourth quarter. Mazzulla held off on emptying the bench, opting to play a couple of his rotation players alongside the reserves for the early minutes of the quarter. As they neared the midway point, Pritchard cashed in on a three — his sixth — to crack the 30-point threshold for Boston. That was the what it took for Mazzulla to pull the plug and run down the clock for the win.
Next up, the Celtics will pack their bags and head to the nation’s capital, squaring off with the Washington Wizards this Sunday at 6 PM EST on NBC Sports Boston.
