The Boston Celtics won their 44th game of the season and the team\u2019s 11th consecutive game against the Washington Wizards with a 111-100 showing on Saturday at TD Garden.<\/p>\n
After two tough losses to the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder over the past week, Boston could have been at risk of suffering the team\u2019s first three-game losing streak since going 0-3 to start the season.<\/p>\n
Luckily, the Celtics were gifted with a matchup against the lowly 16-49 Wizards, the loser of 10 straight heading into the game.<\/p>\n
Washington has not won a game against Boston since March 28, 2023, when Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is torched the C\u2019s with 32 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 stocks \u2014 a game that might have inspired Brad Stevens to trade for the lengthy Latvian.<\/p>\n
The Wizards had no such savior on Sunday, as Neemias Queta feasted on Washington\u2019s porous post defense to the tune of 24 points and 10 rebounds, leading Boston to a 3-0 sweep of the season series.<\/p>\n
Boston started Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser, Jayson Tatum and Neemias Queta. Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107, who is not expected to return until early April, was the team\u2019s only inactive player.<\/p>\n
Washington started Trae Young, Tre Johnson, Bilal Coulibaly, Will Riley and Alex Sarr. Anthony Davis, Kyshawn George, D\u2019Angelo Russell and Cam Whitmore were all inactive.<\/p>\n
Neemias Queta got the Celtics started strong by scoring 8 of Boston\u2019s first 10 points. He finished the first quarter with 13 points on 6 makes \u2014 his highest-scoring quarter of the season so far \u2014 and 3 rebounds over the frame.<\/p>\n
While Queta dominated, the rest of the team struggled in the first quarter, especially from the perimeter, where Boston only hit 2 shots. Jaylen Brown was the only other Celtic to make multiple field goal attempts, with 3 makes. Derrick White and Baylor Scheierman each chipped in one three-point make.<\/p>\n
Jayson Tatum started the game 0-4 from the field, with one good-looking layup attempt roll off the rim, and 0-2 from three-point range.<\/p>\n
On the other end, the Celtics had a hard time stopping the Wizards\u2019 perimeter attack. Washington made 7-16 of its three-point attempts during the quarter, outnumbering Boston\u2019s made threes by five.<\/p>\n
Despite the shooting deficit and a missed buzzer beater attempt by Payton Pritchard, the Celtics ended the quarter up 29-27.<\/p>\n
The second quarter began with a pair of high effort plays by Luka Garza, who scored Boston\u2019s first two field goals of the quarter and 6 points over the frame\u2019s first three minutes.<\/p>\n
The lid also came off the basket a few minutes into the quarter for Sam Hauser. He hit his first three-point shot of the night early in the quarter, then his second less than a minute later.<\/p>\n
Behind Garza\u2019s effort, Hauser\u2019s three-point makes, and some beautiful defense, the Celtics went on a 17-2 run over the first half of the second quarter that gave Boston the first big lead of the evening.<\/p>\n
Queta also came back in with about 7 minutes left to go in the second quarter and immediately looked as dominant as he did in the first.<\/p>\n
He followed his 13-point first quarter with a 9-point second quarter, as he continued to feast on a defense that seemingly refused to guard him. He finished the half with 22 points on 10-12 (83.3%) shooting from the field, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 block.<\/p>\n
Much like Hauser, Tatum came alive in the second quarter. He scored his first points on a pair of free throws with 3 minutes left to go in the half. Tatum then hit a three-point shot less than a minute later, and a slick midrange shot a minute after that.<\/p>\n
Despite poor efficiency, Tatum finished the half on pace for a triple-double, with 7 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, as well as 1 steal.<\/p>\n
The Celtics went into the half up 64-41 after winning the second quarter 35-14.<\/p>\n
Tatum followed up his strong finish to the second quarter with a couple of early makes in the third quarter, and had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds with more than 20 minutes left to go in the game. He continued to attack the Wizards\u2019 defense and racked up 11 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist over the quarter.<\/p>\n
Queta, Boston\u2019s MVP of the first half, did not attempt a single shot throughout the quarter, but continued to keep Washington\u2019s offense in check during his time on the court.<\/p>\n
The Celtics went up by 30 with 4 minutes to go in the third quarter, but finished the frame with a 93-72 lead over the Wizards.<\/p>\n
The game was all but over by the time the fourth quarter began, but Washington did not give up.<\/p>\n
The Wizards went on a 7-0 run to start the final frame against Derrick and the Whites (Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Baylor Scheierman, and Luka Garza) in a late attempt to narrow the lead.<\/p>\n
Garza hit a pair of free throws and a three-point shot, but was subbed out alongside Hauser in favor of Queta and Jaylen Brown with about 8 minutes to go in the game.<\/p>\n
Brown immediately scored on a driving layup, but Washington scored the game\u2019s next three field goals to chip the lead down to 14.<\/p>\n
The Celtics took a timeout and got Jayson Tatum back on the court, but the Wizards continued to hit shots. With less than 5 minutes to go, Washington was only down by 12.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, a Tatum layup and a fourth Hauser three-pointer brought the lead back up to 17 with 2:31 to go in the game. The starting crew was then subbed out with about 1:33 to go, and the bench was able to finish the game.<\/p>\n
Queta finished the game as Boston\u2019s top scorer, with 24 points on 11-13 (84.6%) shooting from the field, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks.<\/p>\n
Tatum finished with the second-most points on the team, with 20 points on 8-19 (42.1%) shooting from the field, 14 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals.<\/p>\n
Overall, the Celtics shot less efficiently than the Wizards, hitting 44.1% from the field and 26.1% from three-point range, while Washington shot 44% from the field and 38.5% from the perimeter.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Boston won the battle of the boards, with 62 total rebounds to Washington\u2019s 47, and won the math game, taking 9 more shot attempts than the Wizards.<\/p>\n
The Celtics\u2019 next game will be against the Phoenix Suns at 7:30 p.m. EST on Monday, March 16, at the TD Garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics won their 44th game of the season and the team\u2019s 11th consecutive game against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,52867,6,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-659779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-celtics-scores","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-wizards","13":"tag-washingtonwizards","14":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116233965249083791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}