The Celtics picked up where they left off prior to the All-Star break, with a 121-110 victory over the shorthanded Golden State Warriors Thursday at the Chase Center.
Jaylen Brown recorded 23 points on 10-of-18 shooting, to go along with 15 rebounds (tying a career-high) and 13 assists (career-best) for his third triple-double of the season.
"Unbelievable," Payton Pritchard told reporters. "He's just getting better and better at just -- obviously, his scoring ability is the best, but like, his ability to now, like, create advantages for us and create double teams and kick out. And you see nights like this."
Pritchard himself, had quite the night, finishing with a game-high 26 points also on 10-of-18 from the field, including 6-of-11 from beyond the arc -- many of those makes were really beyond the 3-point arc -- to go along with six rebounds and seven assists, while Sam Hauser went 4-of-5 from deep to notch 16 points and five assists. Derrick White chipped in 10 points, eight assists and four blocks for the Celtics, who improved to 36-19 and have won eight of their last 10.
The Warriors were without Stephen Curry (knee) and Jimmy Butler (ACL), as De'Anthony was their leading scorer with 18 points, while Gui Santos and Will Richard each netted 17 respectively. Former Celtic Kristaps Prozingis made his debut with Golden State since being acquired at the trade deadline from the Atlanta Hawks, he had 12 points on 5-of-9 from the floor in 17 minutes of limited action.
Boston outscored the home team 38-19 in the second period to take a 74-51 advantage into the break and had 21 assists on 29 made field goals, before pushing the lead to 34 in the third quarter.
Just when it seemed like the Warriors were done for the night, they went on a 33-15 run to slice a 30-point deficit down to 11 with 2:57 left to play and Joe Mazzulla put his starters back in during that span. Pritchard hit back-to-back 3-pointers to stop the bleeding on assists from Brown, as the five-time All-Star also scored down the stretch to put the game away for good.
"We're at our best when [Brown] defends at a high level and takes accountability in his rebounding. I thought his rebounding was great tonight defensively," Mazzulla said of Brown in his postgame comments. "Offensively, again, this team challenges your ability to make rim reads or challenges your ability to play two-on-one, and tonight, he just did a great job of finding that. Whether it was for himself or for others. I thought the pace and the poise with which he played at a high level. And you can see in real time where the game just completely slowed down for him. And he was able to just recognize where the two-on-one was every single time. And so he takes a ton of pride in that, and I thought he did a great job tonight."
The Celtics continue their four-game west coast swing Sunday when they face the Los Angeles Lakers (33-21). NBC/Peacock have the tip-off at 6:30 pm ET.
Boston knocked down 52% of their attempts, including going 17-of-40 (43%) from 3-point range, while the Warriors were 45% from the floor and 20-of-55 (36%) from 3. The Celtics won the rebound battle 54-40 and outscored the home team in the paint 58-44. The C's dished out a season-high 36 assists on 49 baskets and had 13 turnovers while Golden State had 30 dimes on 43 made shots and turned the ball over only nine times.
Joel Pavón
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