Boston Celtics become the first team in NBA to reach 30 wins with victory over New Orleans Pelicans
CNN
–
The Boston Celtics became the first team in the NBA to reach 30 wins this season after beating the New Orleans Pelicans 125-114 at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday night, thanks to a combined 72 from the team’s stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The score is behind. .
Brown scored a season-high 41 points and had 12 rebounds while Tatum had 31 points and 10 rebounds as the Celtics won their fourth straight game.
Brown particularly attacked the Pelicans from mid-range, crediting the addition of extra muscle in the offseason to allow him to connect with bigger opponents, as he makes a concerted effort to not settle for attempts from deep. .
“I think I can get to the rim at a good rate this year,” Brown told reporters afterward, according to the Celtics website. “I definitely want to keep it going.
“I don’t want to let the defense off the hook, but I feel good about a lot of shots from the three. Some of them went down, some of them didn’t. But I definitely still think I’ll definitely be trying to get to the basket a lot more for the remainder of the year.
Celtics forward Al Horford reiterated the point: “When (Brown) drives, I think people feel it.
“When he’s hitting you while he’s driving, it’s real. So it’s good to see him play at that level and make up his mind that he’s going to attack the paint.
It was Brown’s sixth 40-point game of his career, moving him past Sam Jones and Isaiah Thomas for the sixth-most in Celtics history.
Along with Tatum, the two wing players have become the driving force behind Boston’s recent success.
The team reached the NBA Finals last season, eventually losing to the Golden State Warriors, and is once again the best in the league this year.
In scoring at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in a single game, Brown and Tatum became the first Celtics players since Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker in 2001 to achieve that stat line.
Drafted a year later — Brown was drafted with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 draft and Tatum was selected with the No. 3 pick in 2017 — they’ve developed an understanding together of how to break down defenses.
“They continue to grow in front of our eyes,” Harford said of the star duo after the win. “They feed off each other, and that’s what really drives our team.”
