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Taylor Snow

Following a 19-point loss in Washington Tuesday night, Jayson Tatum affirmed that his Celtics would respond two nights later in Milwaukee.

And boy, did they – with a 41-point drubbing of the first-place Bucks at Fiserv Forum.

Boston did most of its damage before halftime with a 41-21 second-quarter advantage. Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, and Malcolm Brogdon combined for 32 of those points, finishing with 15, nine, and eight in the quarter respectively.

In the first half of the second quarter, the C’s expanded an eight-point lead into a 22-point lead, going on a 16-2 run during a five-minute span, during which Milwaukee failed to make a field goal. Tatum made plenty of field goals during that time, at one point scoring eight consecutive points.

By the end of the second quarter, Boston had turned its eight-point lead into a 28-point lead by a score of 75-47. Tatum and Jaylen Brown finished the half with just five fewer combined points than the entire Bucks team, as the former erupted for 22 while the latter poured in 20, including 17 in the first quarter.

From there, the Celtics went up by as many as 49 points before rolling to a 140-99 win.

Jayson Tatum was flawless Thursday night. Against the best team in the league, he churned out 40 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the field, 8-of-10 from 3-point range, and 8-of-8 from the free-throw line, all while not committing a single turnover.

It marked the third 40-point, zero-turnover game of Tatum’s career. In the entire history of the Celtics, there have only been three other such performances (two for Larry Bird and one for Antoine Walker).

The 40-point outing was historic for another reason in that it was Tatum's 11th of the season, tying him with Larry Bird for most 40-point games in a single campaign.

It also marked the second straight 40-point game for Tatum in Milwaukee, following his 46-point Game 6 effort from last season’s Eastern Conference Semifinals. Plus, it was his second 40-point game against the Bucks this season after dropping 41 in his only other game against them on Christmas.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Tatum's 40-point outing is that he completed it all in just three quarters. The Celtics built a large enough lead that allowed him and most of the starters to rest for the entire fourth quarter, so he only had to spend 30 minutes on the court.

"We've got to keep it up. Have fun, keep playing the right way, and we'll see where that takes us."

–&nbsp;Jaylen Brown after leading the Celtics to their fourth win of at least 23 points in the last five games.

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Keys to the Game: Celtics 140, Bucks 99

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Following a series of impressive blowout wins over the past week, the Boston Celtics were given a taste of their own medicine Tuesday night in Washington, where they suffered a rare blowout defeat.

The Wizards put a spell on Boston from the start, leading from the midway point of the first quarter –&nbsp;and by as many as 23 points – all the way to a 130-111 finish at Capital One Arena.

The 19-point loss was only Boston’s third defeat of the season by a margin of that or greater. Previously, it had been tied for the fewest such losses in the NBA.

“We’ve been playing really good basketball for a stretch of time,” said Mazzulla, whose team entered the night with a franchise-record-tying three straight wins of at least 23 points. “Tonight was just an off night. Very rarely has that happened to us, so we just have to continue to move on and control the things that we can.”

It was an unusual game all around. Kristaps Porzingis, whom the Celtics generally lock up on the defensive end, had one of his best performances of the season with 32 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists. Marcus Smart said after the game that when a 7-foot-3 shooter gets hot, there’s not much a team can do to stop him from shooting over the top.

The Celtics tried to defend Porzingis with various coverages, which Mazzulla pointed out, but he still couldn’t be stopped.

“He just did a good job scoring, whether it was in transition, in the mid-post or in the paint,” Mazzulla said of Porzingis, who entered the night with a career scoring average of 15.8 points per game against the Celtics, his lowest against any opponent. “I thought that was one of the better games that Porzingis has played against us and they executed really well. And so, we changed the matchups, we changed some coverages, and he was able to combat all of that tonight.”

The entire Wizards team did well in transition, leading to 19 fast-break points. On the other side of the ball, Boston struggled with its shooting from the start, which led to an early disadvantage.

“We’re not perfect,” said Marcus Smart, the only Celtic to shoot above 33.3 percent from 3-point range with a 4-of-7 clip, which included his 900th career triple. “I mean, we’re human. There are going to be games when we don’t make shots. There’s gonna be games when you make shots. Tonight they made shots –&nbsp;they made a lot of them. So you tip your hat off to those guys.”

Jaylen Brown didn’t get too worked up over the loss considering how the C’s had outscored their previous three opponents by a combined 92 points.

“I’m not going to let tonight set the tone for what we’ve been playing,” said the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week. “We’ve been playing good ball the last couple of weeks. We’ll just throw it away, get ready for the next one.”

The next one will be a big one – perhaps the biggest game of the regular season for the Celtics. They’ll head to Milwaukee Thursday to take on the first-place Bucks, who own a 2.5-game lead over Boston. If Milwaukee happens to lose to Indiana Wednesday night and then again to the C’s the following night, Boston would sit just one game back with four games remaining. In that scenario, the Celtics would also own the tiebreaker over Milwaukee should they gain another game in the standings.

Hypotheticals aside, Jayson Tatum says he just wants the Celtics to bounce back and play well against a potential playoff opponent.

“We’ll play better,” said Tatum, who logged team-high marks of 28 points, nine rebounds, and five assists in D.C. “We’ll come out with more pop, we’ll come out with more energy, more focus. Just learn from this game, and move on to the next one. All I care about is how we respond, and I’m sure that we will.”

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The Celtics tried to make a late run with the help of their bench, but the Wizards held on for a 130-111 win.

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Boston trailed by only two points with less than seven minutes left in the second quarter of Tuesday’s matchup with the Wizards. By the end of the half, Washington had opened up a 14-point advantage and it never gave that lead away before completing a 130-111 win.

The Wizards outscored Boston 29-18 over the final 6:26 of the half to take control of the game. The most devastating shot of all came just ahead of the halftime buzzer, when Kristaps Porzingis fired in a high-arcing midrange shot just ahead of the horn.

Washington led 62-51 with 2.0 seconds left in the half when Monte Morris tossed an inbound pass over the defense and to Porzingis at the free-throw line. He took one dribble to his left and fired up a shot over Al Horford that swished through the net at the buzzer.

That bucket gave Porzingis 20 points at the half while simultaneously giving the Wizards confidence that this was their night. Washington went on to coast throughout the second half, as its lead never dropped back into single-digits the rest of the way.

There weren’t many Celtics who had it going Tuesday night. Jayson Tatum was one of them.

Tatum led the team in scoring with 28 points thanks to his strong 11-for-19 shooting effort. He made nine of his 12 shots from inside the 3-point arc, as well as all four of his free throws.

Tatum also led Boston in the rebounding department with nine boards on the night. No other member of the team grabbed more than six. Lastly, Tatum and Marcus Smart tied for the team high in assists with five apiece.

These numbers were logged in less than 32 minutes of action, because Boston’s starters were pulled from the game with 9:21 remaining in the fourth quarter.

"Tonight was just an off night. Very rarely has that happened to us, so we just have to move on and control the things that we can."

- Joe Mazzulla on Boston's loss to the Wizards

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Keys to the Game: Wizards 130, Celtics 111

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Jaylen Brown earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the third time in his career, the NBA announced Monday afternoon, further bolstering his case for an All-NBA selection.

JB is the third Celtic to receive Player of the Week honors this season, joining Derrick White (2/12) and Jayson Tatum (10/23). The last team to have three players earn a weekly recognition in the same season was Toronto in 2019-20. That also happened to be the season in which Brown won both of his previous Player of the Week awards.

The Celtics wing guided Boston to a 3-0 record (all wins by 23+ points) in Week 23 of the season (March 20-26), during which he averaged 31.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 3.7 assists in 34.6 minutes per game. His scoring average was second in the conference only to Tatum, though Tatum played one less game.

Brown's 95-point week included a franchise-record-tying shooting effort Sunday night against the Spurs during Boston's biggest blowout win of the season. He’s currently riding a seven-game streak of scoring at least 25 points, which is the longest active stretch in the East.

Now, let’s look back at those three games that earned Brown the hardware.

Brown started off the week Tuesday night by helping the Celtics close out a season-long-tying six-game road trip in Sacramento with one of their best wins of the season. JB shot an efficient 10-of-16 from the field, 4-of-7 from 3-point range, and 3-of-3 from the free-throw line, while guiding the C’s to a 132-109 win over the West’s second-place Kings.

Brown also grabbed five rebounds, dished out four assists, and turned the ball over just once in 34 minutes of action. He was part of an outstanding offensive effort in which the Celtics handed out 33 assists while committing just five turnovers, marking just the second time in team history that they reached such a high mark in the assists category along with such a low mark in the turnovers department.

On the defensive end, Brown helped to hold Sacramento’s starting backcourt to a total of just 24 points, including just 18 points from team-leading scorer De’Aaron Fox. The 109 points scored by the Kings were by far their fewest in weeks inside their home arena, where they had scored 122-plus in a franchise-record seven straight games.

Brown helped to carry the momentum back home Thursday night in an even bigger blowout against the Indiana Pacers.

The All-Star wing matched his scoring total from the previous game with 27 points on 10-of-23 shooting from the field, a 3-of-6 clip from long range, and a 4-of-6 mark from the charity stripe while leading the C’s to a 120-95 win at TD Garden. Brown also corralled seven rebounds, and once again dished out four assists in just under 34 minutes of action.

Defense was an emphasis yet again in this matchup, as the C’s held Indiana to its lowest point total of the 2023 calendar year. This time, JB aided the cause by helping to limit the Pacers’ starting backcourt to just 26 total points, which included 20 from All-Star and team-leading scorer Tyrese Haliburton.

Brown saved his best effort of the week for last with a historic, 41-point, 13-rebound performance Sunday night in his team’s most lopsided win of the season against the San Antonio Spurs.

While his wingmate, Jayson Tatum, was sidelined with a hip injury, Brown stepped up with one of his best outings of the season and one of the most efficient shooting efforts in team history, while leading the C’s to a 137-93 victory. His 18-of-29 shooting performance from the field included a remarkable 16-of-19 from inside the 3-point arc, tying Larry Bird and Bill Sharman’s record for best 2-point percentage (84.2 percent) in a game with at least that many attempts.

Brown also became the first Celtic since Larry Bird on March 15, 1992 to make at least 18 field goals and grab at least 13 rebounds in a game. The only other players in franchise history to accomplish such a feat were Hall-of-Famers Kevin McHale, Dave Cowens, and Tom Heinsohn.

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Brown Earns 3rd Career Player of the Week Nod

BOSTON – While his wingman, Jayson Tatum, was on the sideline Sunday night, Jaylen Brown put the Celtics on his shoulders and delivered in historic fashion en route to the most lopsided win of Boston’s season.

JB came through with 41 points, which included an absurd 16-of-19 clip from inside the 3-point arc, leading the C’s to a 137-93 win over the San Antonio Spurs at TD Garden.

“We were down a guy, but it’s nothing for him to step in and fill that void,” said teammate Rob Williams, referring to Brown stepping up in place of Tatum, who was out with a hip injury. “We trust him, he trusts us, and he led us."

Brown’s prowess from 2-point range was tied for the most efficient mark on at least that many attempts in Celtics history. Two others shot exactly 16-of-19 in a game as well: Larry Bird on Nov. 27, 1984, and Bill Sharman on Jan. 9, 1958 (before the introduction of the 3-point arc).

Most of those makes came on finishes inside the restricted area, where Brown shot a near-perfect 13-of-14.

Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla says Brown’s ability to score so efficiently is due to his high basketball IQ and ability to anticipate how the opposition is defending him.

“I think he's always had the ability to score, but now he has the ability to break defenses down, to understand how the defense is guarding him, to anticipate where the help is coming from, and then to make the right play,” said Mazzulla, whose Celtics now sit just 1.5 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Bucks. “And so, to me, his scoring is obviously huge for us, but his decision-making and his reads have gotten a lot better. It's a credit to him because he works at it every single day.”

Brown says he’s focusing even more and working even harder with the playoffs around the corner, and he’s shown that with his play. Over his last seven outings, the All-NBA hopeful has averaged 32.1 points per game while shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from 3-point range.

That, on top of his full season of work, is what makes Malcolm Brogdon believe that Brown is the best player at his position in the league.

“He’ll be All-NBA, he’ll make one of the teams this year,” insisted Brogdon, who scored 20 points off the bench Sunday night. “His game really speaks for itself. When JT is out, he’s the No. 1 option. He’s showing that he can be that. He’s put in the work, he’s evolved. Since we came in the league together, he’s evolved and taken giant steps forward every year, and he’s playing at an extremely high level.”

It goes without saying that Brown prefers to have Tatum by his side, but he also embraces the task of stepping into that clear-cut, No. 1 role and putting the whole team on his back.

“It's a fun challenge,” said Brown, who moved past Cedric Maxwell into 18th place on the Celtics' all-time scoring list Sunday night with his 8,312th career point. “I get up every day and do my job, whether they ask me to score, defend, rebound. Since I’ve been here in Boston, I’ve always taken pride in doing what I’ve been asked to do. Whatever challenge there’s been, I’ve always met that challenge with excitement and a willingness to be a part of a team. When you get an opportunity to be the guy that everybody is kind of leaning on, it’s a privilege. It’s an honor, so I don’t take those moments for granted. I come out each and every night, strap my shoes up, and get my guys ready to go.”