Celtics dominate Warriors to start west coast road trip, win big 125-85

The Boston Celtics began January’s second west coast road trip on Monday evening, facing off against the 21-20 Golden State Warriors at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Boston prevailed in a big way 125-85 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The win sees the Celtics bounce back after a tough loss to Atlanta in overtime on Saturday.

Kristaps Porzingis hit on the game’s first shot, a line drive three-pointer, playing in the high post with Jayson Tatum. Tatum then hit a mid-range pull-up jumper, and a sweet wraparound pass by Jaylen Brown to Kristaps for a corner three, saw the C’s get the first eight points of the game.

The eleventh-placed Western Conference team then raced back into the game with their own 8-point run as both teams settled into the early game. Steph Curry missed his first two three-point attempts before hitting his first make over Jaylen Brown; Boston held a 13-11 lead at the first timeout of the game.

Boston and Golden State traded buckets for the middle portion of the quarter before the Celtics raced out to a 14-1 run to end the quarter up, 29-18. Boston, which has been struggling from the three-point line in recent games, managed to reverse that trend in the first quarter, as the C’s finished the quarter 5-11 from three compared to a terrible 1-12 for the Warriors.

Golden State finally stopped the scoring drought at the nine-minute mark of the second quarter, as Kevon Looney grabbed an offensive rebound and had a put-back layup for his fourth point of the game.

A balanced scoring output for the Celtics saw all nine Boston players score in the first half, highlighted by Kristaps with 12 points, Jayson Tatum with 10 points, and Jrue Holiday adding 7 points also.

Golden State, who are 5-5 in the last 10 games and have won 2 straight games coming into Monday night’s matchup. However, the Warriors shot the ball extremely poorly with just 32 percent from the field and a dire 3-23 from three.

The Warriors were getting into the paint quite easily in the first half, which has been a worrying trend for Boston recently. Steph Curry managed to knife into the lane at the end of the half and score on consecutive layups, as the Warriors managed to keep the score somewhat respectable. The Warriors would end the half within striking distance after a disastrous shooting performance, Boston up 54-39.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Jrue Holiday kept his hot shooting going to start the third quarter, hitting on his 2nd three-pointer of the game and his tenth point. Kristaps looked to keep punishing the Warriors smaller interior defenders with a three-point play on a Steph Curry attempted wrap-up to take a 19-point lead.

Jaylen Brown, who was relatively quiet offensively in the first half, got in on the action in the third. The former California Golden Bear had a strong drive in the paint on former teammate Dennis Schröder, then hit a corner three-pointer on the break, as Boston went up 67-44.

Boston kept the foot on the gas well into the third, getting a lead out to as many as 30 points at one point, as the Warriors capitulation was pretty evident on both ends. Draymond Green was absent from the game for Golden State with a mild calf strain, as the team sits 9th in the conference ahead of the pending trade deadline.

Boston reeled off three straight triples from Hauser, Tatum and Pritchard with 3 minutes to go in the quarter, as the air well and truly left the building at the Chase center. Boston’s dominant third quarter performance saw them up 97-63 at the end of three quarters.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

With Boston playing 5 games in 7 nights, all eyes were on Coach Joe Mazzulla at the end of three to see how much more playing time the starters would see with the game pretty in hand. Jrue and Derrick were the only starters in the game to start the fourth quarter as Brown, Tatum, Horford and Porzingis got extended rest ahead of back-to-back games in Los Angeles.

Both teams cleared the bench early in the fourth and Boston looked to Jordan Walsh, Neemias Queta, Xavier Tillman and Jaden Springer to get some reps in to finish off the game on National TV. Jordan Walsh had some good minutes to end the game, hitting on a perfect 2 for 2 from three and Queta hit a free throw as twelve players scored on the night for Boston. Baylor Scheierman would also see some late gametime and hit on his first two shots and get the Celtics twentieth three-pointer of the night.

Top five scorer in the league, Jayson Tatum would lead the Celtics with 22 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, Porzingis had 18 points with 3-7 from three, Brown added 17 points and Payton Pritchard would finish the game with 14 points.

Boston has a one-day break before traveling south to Los Angeles to face the Clippers on January 22nd and then the Lakers on the following night, January 23rd.