The Boston Celtics’ road trip to the nation’s capital this week was a matter of business as much as leisure. Just a day after the team visited the White House to celebrate their championship win with President Joe Biden, the Celtics returned to the court in Washington, DC for their second showdown with the Wizards of the year — this one also the team’s third Emirates NBA Cup matchup. This was, put frankly, not a particularly exciting game — both teams shot in the low-40% range for the night — but the Celtics were able to score a win, 108-96, and bolster their point differential in tournament play in the process.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown each had nights they’d likely rather forget. The superstar duo combined for 47 points and shot an absolutely brutal 17-of-46 from the field (3-of-23 from three-point range) in the contest. The Boston bench added some strong contributions, including 13 points from Sam Hauser and some impactful second-half minutes from Xavier Tillman. For the Wizards, Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma scored a combined 44 points.
Boston’s offense got off to a particularly slow start in this one. They struggled to crack 40% shooting from the field for the early minutes of the first quarter, missing easy looks and committing several careless turnovers, including a steal on an inbounds pass from Tatum. Thankfully, despite the Celtics’ struggles, the Wizards were even more careless with the ball. Their five first quarter turnovers prevented them from building a substantial lead, and a hot start from the Boston bench (15 points, 3-of-3 three-point shooting) allowed them to inch ahead 29-27 heading into the second quarter.
Outlier shooting from the Boston bench did not prove to carry them as the second quarter began. The Wizards raced out of the games in the second frame with a 9-0 run, and quickly established a 10-point lead over a Boston team that couldn’t buy a three-point shot to save its life. And yet, much as in the first quarter, the Wizards couldn’t capitalize well enough to put themselves meaningfully ahead. The Celtics compiled a 13-0 run as the quarter wore on, and the teams entered the halftime break at a relative stalemate, with Washington ahead 51-49.
The collective offensive quagmire carried on into the second half. Scoring pace remained sluggish, and neither team seemed to be able to buy themselves a three-pointer. The Celtics remained within a possession of Washington’s lead for the bulk of the quarter, but their execution seemed particularly poor — much to the chagrin of an increasingly frustrated Joe Mazzulla. Boston’s lineups seemed disjointed, their defense far less than disciplined, and Mazzulla picked up a technical foul protesting a non-call on a hit on Brown.
Nonetheless, as we’d seen all night long, the Celtics simply seemed to out-talent the Wizards as the quarter wore on. Washington’s mistakes compounded on themselves for the third consecutive quarter, and this time, Boston was able to claim a lead. They pushed ahead as much as six points in the closing minutes of the third, and entered the final quarter with a three-point lead, 75-72.
Derrick White opened the fourth quarter with a splash, connecting on an off-the-dribble three-pointer — his first in seven attempts on the night. It was not a harbinger of better things for the Boston offense, as the basket, frankly, seemed as if it had a lid over it. Every shot the Celtics put up seemed to bounce ignominiously off the rim. Tatum missed his tenth consecutive triple of the night, as the team overall lapsed below 25% shooting from distance in the early minutes of the fourth quarter.
White, at least, seemed to find a relative hot streak. His second three-pointer of the game followed the first just a couple minutes later, giving the Celtics a five point lead with just over eight minutes remaining in regulation. A midrange shot from Tatum — eeking him into double-digit scoring for the game — pushed the Celtics ahead by seven, a lead that felt like a landslide relative to the offensive misery of the evening.
The Wizards attempted to hang tough, with Poole connecting on a three-pointer to cut the lead back to four, but they didn’t seem to have enough in the tank to threaten further. Tatum and Brown finally found a bit of a groove — at least from inside the arc — and their shotmaking was too much for Washington to overcome. Brown connected on a tough fadeaway midrange jumper to restore a seven-point Celtics lead with 46 second remaining in regulation, and mercifully put this game on ice for good.
Next up, the Celtics will return home to host a Western Conference foe in the Minnesota Timberwolves this Sunday at 3:30 PM EST on NBC Sports Boston.
