Jaylen Brown believed he was robbed of the Eastern Conference Player of the Month award. That he, not Jalen Brunson, deserved that honor after he outpaced the New York Knicks point guard in nearly every statistical category during a dominant December.
Joe Mazzulla hoped Brown would take out his frustration on the Celtics’ upcoming opponents. On Saturday night, he did just that.
Brown systematically dismantled the Los Angeles Clippers in one of the finest games of his career, scoring 50 points on 18-of-26 shooting as the Celtics rolled to a 146-115 win at Intuit Dome.
The 50 points tied Brown’s career high. He’s now one of just five players in Celtics history to score 50-plus multiple times (playoffs included), joining Larry Bird, Sam Jones, Isaiah Thomas and Jayson Tatum.
“I knew he was going to come out and play with a chip on his shoulder,” Mazzulla told reporters in his postgame news conference. “And after the game, I just kind of thanked him. I think that was an honor to be able to watch a performance like that as a coach.”
Nearly as impressive as Brown’s scoring volume was his efficiency. He shot 69.2% from the field, 60% from 3-point range (6-for-10) and 80% from the foul line (8-for-10) in the lopsided win, which capped a 4-1 road trip for the Celtics. It also halted a six-game winning streak for the surging Clippers, who won all six by double digits.
Kawhi Leonard averaged 39.0 points per game during that streak, but the Celtics held him to 22 on 6-of-17 shooting. Brown spent much of the night guarding the six-time All-Star — an assignment Mazzulla said Brown asked for.
“He brought it on the offensive end, and obviously we were able to see from his shot-making, but I thought his defense was tremendous from start to end,” Mazzulla told reporters. “I thought that was one of the most complete games that I’ve seen him play.”
Celtics guard Derrick White added 29 points on 10-of-20 shooting, seven assists, four rebounds, two blocks and one steal. Anfernee Simons (15 points, 5-for-8 from three) and Luka Garza (11 points, six rebounds, one steal, one block) continued to give Boston strong minutes off the bench, as they did throughout the team’s season-long road trip.
Jordan Walsh was replaced in the starting lineup by Sam Hauser but wound up having one of his busiest and most productive games of the season. The 21-year-old wing, who made 20 consecutive starts before Saturday’s demotion, tallied 13 points, a career-high 13 rebounds, two assists and a block in his 30 minutes, during which the Celtics outscored the Clippers by 24 points.
“I thought (Walsh) was tremendous,” Mazzulla told reporters.
The Clippers boasted the NBA’s best defensive rating during their win streak, but the Celtics torched them in Boston’s highest-scoring first quarter of the season.
The C’s racked up 42 points in the opening 12 minutes, including 14 from White — who opened the quarter with a 3-pointer and closed it by drawing a foul on a second-chance three — and 13 from Brown. The Celtics’ headliners both topped 20 before halftime while going a combined 14-for-24 from the field (58.3%).
LA also had a 20-point first-half scorer — and it wasn’t Leonard or former NBA MVP James Harden. It was veteran big man John Collins, who capitalized on the attention his superstar teammates commanded by hitting his first eight field-goal attempts, including 3-pointers on three straight Clippers possessions midway through the second quarter. That flurry helped the Clippers cut a 16-point Celtics lead to eight.
Both teams shot better than 53% from the field and 40% from deep during a barnburner of a first half, which ended with Boston leading 71-63.
Leonard and Harden both upped their offensive production in the third quarter, and the Clippers continued to feast on a steady diet of corner threes from their role players. Over the first three quarters, the Celtics watched the trio of Collins, Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. attempt seven 3-pointers in front of Boston’s bench and drain all of them.
But the Clippers could not keep pace with Brown, who did not miss in a 19-point third quarter that featured an array of contested and off-balance makes. The Celtics scored 42 in the frame, took a 113-99 lead into the fourth and pulled away late.
Payton Pritchard scored all 12 of his points in the final quarter to help turn the game into a laugher. Leonard and Harden totaled just six fourth-quarter points, eliminating any chance of a late-game comeback like the one the Clippers staged in their narrow loss at TD Garden on Nov. 16.
Together, the two Clippers stars scored 10 fewer points than Brown did alone. Harden finished with 18 and attempted just three free throws, his second-lowest total of the season.
“I feel like I’m the best two-way player in the game,” Brown told NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin, “so I want to just take on the challenge each and every night to help my team get wins.”
Brown, who made 11 of his first 12 second-half field goals, hit a floater in the lane with 3:56 to play to hit the 50-point milestone, then called it a night.
It was another statement outing from Boston’s top option, who’s played the best basketball of his career this season while Tatum recovers from Achilles surgery. In his last 14 appearances, Brown has as many 40-plus-point nights (three) as games where he failed to score 30. He led the NBA in scoring in December and ranks fourth in the league in points per game, putting himself on a clear path toward All-NBA recognition.
That Brown did not receive what would have been his first career Player of the Month nod — which prompted him to tweet “smh” and blame his snub on “politics” — was one of several sources of motivation Saturday night, Mazzulla said.
“I think it’s, you’re playing against a team that’s won six or seven in a row, that has found a hot streak, that is playing really well,” the Celtics coach told reporters. “You’re playing against two great players (Leonard and Harden) that Jaylen has played against for quite some time. It’s a huge mindset win because it’s the last game of a road trip. We obviously talked about (how) he didn’t get Player of the Month. And I think all those things combined, for a guy like Jaylen, just brings out the best in him. He just wants to compete at the highest level.
“We’re always talking about team, team, team, and team is the absolute most important thing, but we have guys that still have a chip on their shoulder and want to be the best and are on the court with other great players, and it’s a goal of theirs to come out on top.”
By winning four of five on their trip, the 22-12 Celtics pulled to within a half-game of the second-place Knicks in the Eastern Conference standings. Boston will begin a four-game homestand Monday against the Chicago Bulls (7:30 p.m.).