By the end of the period, Queta had registered 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots, and the Celtics had raced to a 43-26 lead that was never in danger. Queta finished the game with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting, along with 10 rebounds and 4 blocks.

On a team filled with offensive weapons, Queta has emerged as a dependable and consistent safety valve whenever a defense’s attention concentrates elsewhere.

Get Starting Point

A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.

“It’s unbelievable,” Tatum said. “I couldn’t be more proud and happy for Neemy. The way he’s seeing the game, the leap he’s made as a screener, as a passer, someone we can trust when we throw him the ball in the seams, finishing, protecting the rim. He is an NBA starting big man, that’s who he is now. He’s only going to continue to get better.”

Following the offseason departures of Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet, the center position was the biggest question mark on the Celtics’ roster. But president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said the team’s faith in Queta, a former two-way contract player, never wavered.

“I think maybe at the beginning of the year we didn’t trust him as much as we do now, and now every time we throw it to him, we expect him to make the right read and right play,” White said. “He’s developed a lot of confidence, and we all have confidence in him.”

Pritchard disagrees with coach

Mazzulla and Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff are the two leading candidates to win the NBA’s Coach of the Year award. When asked last week about the significance of the potential honor, Mazzulla dismissed it, calling it a “stupid award” and saying that it should not exist. He said he would prefer that the focus remained on his players and staff.

But Celtics guard Payton Pritchard, the reigning NBA Sixth Man of the Year, chuckled Friday morning when asked if he has seen Mazzulla’s thoughts on the topic.

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s a real Joe response.”

But Pritchard did not agree with it.

“He definitely should [win],” Pritchard said. “We should all endorse him. The expectations for this team, he never believed in those, and he pushed us. And he’s a big reason, if not the biggest reason, we’re in this position. So, he’s definitely the coach of the year in my eyes.”

Pritchard said he admired Mazzulla’s willingness to adapt following a roster overhaul that altered the team’s strengths.

“He’s a competitor, and he focuses on how this team is going to get better and better,” Pritchard said. “He changed some things up this year as far as film sessions. He went to more, instead of a dictatorship, like a classroom setting where we’re just going to learn through all the ups and downs in that setting. So, it was great.”

Score is all that matters

The Celtics’ blowout wins over the Heat and Bucks in their last two games included statistical anomalies.

They beat the Heat, 147-129, despite allowing Miami to hit 24 of 47 3-pointers (51.1 percent). Then they breezed past the Bucks by 32 points even though Milwaukee shot 21 of 47 (44.7 percent) from beyond the arc.

Boston had been 0-6 when an opponent made at least 43.5 percent of its 3-pointers. But after the Bucks game, Mazzulla pointed to Milwaukee’s low scoring total as the most important figure.

“They scored 101,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to take away all of them. To me, we took away the transition ones, we took away the offensive rebound ones, we took some away from guys we needed to take away from … Shooting 44 percent from 3 and shooting 47 3s and only having 101 points, it just shows we took care of the other stuff we needed to.”

Center Nikola Vucevic, who has been sidelined since breaking his right ring finger in Boston’s March 6 win over the Mavericks, has been upgraded to questionable for Sunday’s home game against the Raptors.

Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.