BOSTON — Less than 24 hours after one of their best wins of the season, the Celtics could have made excuses.
Travel issues made the Celtics stay an extra night in Milwaukee after their blowout win over the Bucks, and they didn’t land in Boston until about six hours before tip-off for their game against the Jazz. The visitors’ top players — including All-Star Lauri Markkanen — were out. The Celtics’ top two frontcourt players, Al Horford and Robert Williams, were also missing from the lineup.
The Celtics have suffered many puzzling losses to inferior, short-handed opponents throughout the season and about a week until the playoffs, Friday’s matchup — the second night of a back-to-back — had the ingredients for another one. But coach Joe Mazzulla wanted his team to learn from their mistakes of old and emphasized responding to wins as much as they did losses, like they did on Thursday after Tuesday’s bad loss to the Wizards. Mazzulla said Thursday’s big win over the Bucks wouldn’t matter without the same effort a night later against a team that beat them earlier this month.
They heard the message. It certainly wasn’t pretty, and the Celtics were from their sharpest, but they ultimately finished the mission. Behind 39 points from Jayson Tatum — who continued his strong shooting surge — and 19 points off the bench from Malcolm Brogdon, the Celtics held off the feisty Jazz with a 122-114 victory at TD Garden.
The Celtics have now won four of their last five games and are starting to click at the right time as the playoffs loom with four games left in the regular season. They moved within 1.5 games of the Bucks as they continue to have faint hopes of capturing the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
After a strong finish to the first half, the Celtics opened up an 11-point lead early in the third quarter before they suffered from some empty offensive possessions and defensive slippage. Johnny Juzang drilled a turnaround 3-pointer and Ochai Agbaji converted a transition dunk to cap a 7-0 Jazz run and close Boston’s lead to four.
That forced Mazzulla to call a timeout – something he’s growing to do more often – and the message was seemingly received. Malcolm Brodgdon hit back-to-back triples out of the timeout, Grant Williams made another for a 9-0 run, and Brogdon made it four for a 12-2 run. The Celtics’ interior defense continued to let the Jazz get easy buckets — Utah finished with 68 points inside the paint — but they ended the quarter on a 21-10 run as they regained a commanding double-digit lead.
The Jazz didn’t threaten again and only got within eight in the fourth quarter despite some questionable officiating that seemed to rattle the Celtics. Blake Griffin and Tatum were each assessed technical fouls that allowed Utah to cut their lead to 11 with 4:32 to go.
But Tatum hit a 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock, the Celtics drew an offensive foul on Jazz guard Kris Dunn. Griffin then took the ball away from Dunn, which agitated him and he quickly picked up two technicals and was ejected as the Celtics seal the win.
