For the first quarter of Monday night’s game at TD Garden, the Celtics’ offense consisted of Jaylen Brown, and not much else.
Brown poured in 16 first-quarter points, but Boston trailed cellar-dwelling Washington by 14 — an uninspiring start for a team that had just lost at home to the likely lottery-bound Utah Jazz two nights earlier.
Then, reinforcements arrived.
With Brown watching from the bench, his Celtics teammates blitzed the Wizards, scoring 23 of the first 27 points in the second quarter. Boston built a 10-point lead by halftime and broke the game open in the third quarter en route to a much-needed 136-107 rout at TD Garden.
The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the 4-5 Celtics, who now head to Orlando for two games against the Magic on Friday and Sunday. Washington fell to 1-7.
Brown led all scorers with 35 points on 13-of-21 shooting (2-for-4 from 3-point range; 7-for-9 on free throws) despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter with Boston up big. It was his fifth 30-point outing in nine games since taking over for the injured Jayson Tatum as the Celtics’ No. 1 option.
His 35 points, five assists and five rebounds in 26 minutes? Never accomplished before by a Celtics player. Just four others in NBA history have reached those totals in that short an outing, and none since 2020.
“For me, I’m just being aggressive and trying to empower my teammates as much as possible,” Brown said.
The Celtics also got an explosive performance from their newest starter, Josh Minott. The 22-year-old scored a career-high 21 points while shooting 8-for-12, hitting three 3-pointers and throwing down four acrobatic dunks — including a pair of transition lobs from Brown and Derrick White, and a third-quarter posterization of Marvin Bagley III.
Center Neemias Queta, Boston’s leader in net rating this season, turned in a 15-point, 12-rebound double-double on 7-of-7 shooting (with five assists, a block and a steal) and was a plus-23 in 24 minutes. White and Payton Pritchard were plus-22 and plus-36, respectively, with White showing some encouraging improvement as a shooter (4-for-8, 2-for-5 from three) while tallying eight assists, three rebounds, three steals and two blocks.
White entered the game shooting a team-worst 31.0% from the field. Pritchard, who’s struggled from the perimeter but excelled in the midrange, scored 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting (2-for-6 from three).
Hugo Gonzalez (28) of the Boston Celtics chases down a ball against Tristan Vukcevic of the Washington Wizards during the second half. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald).
Brown shot 7-for-11 in the first quarter, and Minott sank both of his 3-point attempts. Those were about the only early positives for the Celtics, who were outscored 37-23 during an unsightly opening frame.
Queta’s two baskets were the only other points Boston scored in the quarter. The Celtics surrendered 13 second-chance points — more than the Wizards, who came in ranked 28th in that metric, were averaging per game this season — and allowed 14 points to Washington’s bench while getting none from their own. And that was with six different Boston bench players seeing action as head coach Joe Mazzulla shuffled through several lineup combinations.
The one he sent out to start the second quarter yielded much stronger results. Utilizing a unit of Pritchard, White, Minott, Queta and seldom-used reserve Jordan Walsh, the Celtics ripped off a 23-4 run to flip the game.
Pritchard, who’d been called to the bench early in the game after picking up two quick fouls, hit two 3-pointers during that Celtics onslaught while adding to his growing collection of midrange makes. White also provided two second-quarter threes, and Walsh delivered his most impactful shift of the season to date.
Payton Pritchard (11) of the Boston Celtics gets the fans going as Neemias Queta looks on during the first half during an easy win over Washington at the TD Garden. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
Ranked last on the Celtics roster in minutes played entering Wednesday, the third-year pro converted a contested layup, had a steal that led to one of White’s triples and pulled down four rebounds, including a tough defensive board that produced a jump ball.
“I thought he was great tonight,” Mazzulla said. “I thought just both ends of the floor, his presence defensively, his rebounding, his positioning, he has got good defensive instincts. I thought he played really well. I thought our defense changed it, but I also think he sparked the change in the game tonight, just because of the way he plays. It’s a credit to him just staying ready, making sure he’s ready at any time.
Walsh added a 3-pointer midway through the third quarter as Boston stretched its lead to 20 points, then 25, then 30. He finished as a plus-27 in 24 minutes, by far the best mark of any non-starter.
Overall, the Celtics shot 39.0% from beyond the arc in the win, a major improvement over their season-worst 21.6% showing Monday night against Utah.
Minott, 6-for-22 entering Wednesday, went 3-for-6 in the most productive 3-point effort of his career. The Celtics are 4-2 since Mazzulla elevated him to the starting lineup.
“Josh is big-time, man,” Queta said. “He plays with a lot of energy. He’s going to rebound for us. He’s going to guard pretty much their best (player), too. His versatility is big-time, and we’ve been playing great since he got to the starting lineup. He’s been a great addition for our team.”
Minott and Queta couldn’t escape Mazzulla’s ire, however, even in a lopsided win. The Celtics coach laid into both players after late-game lapses, which Minott described as “very energetically telling me what I did wrong.”
“Just coaching them,” Mazzulla said. “Those guys want to be coached. They want to be held accountable. They’ve done some really good things for us, and I think in order to get to a place that we know we can get to, we’ve just got to fight for execution all the time. So they understand that, they hold themselves to a high standard, and they did a great job of that. We’ve just got to keep that up.”
Boston played most of the fourth quarter with a small-ball lineup of Anfernee Simons, Hugo Gonzalez, Sam Hauser, Walsh and Minott. Playing time was limited for Queta’s understudies on the big man depth chart; Garza logged just seven minutes and Xavier Tillman and Chris Boucher both were healthy DNPs.
The Celtics will look to get back to .500 and improve to 2-0 in NBA Cup play (after their dramatic win at Philadelphia last Friday) when they visit the Magic on Friday.
Neemias Queta of the Boston Celtics screams out in pain during the first half against the Washington Wizards. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)