{"id":693202,"date":"2026-04-02T03:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693202\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T03:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:44:18","slug":"celtics-catch-fire-vs-heat-in-exceptional-offensive-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693202\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics catch fire vs. Heat in ‘exceptional’ offensive night"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI — The Boston Celtics<\/a> had a first quarter like none other in their storied history Wednesday night, scoring 53 points in the opening 12 minutes of a 147-129 victory<\/a> over the Miami Heat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was the second-highest-scoring first quarter in NBA regular-season history. The Golden State Warriors<\/a> had a 55-point opening quarter at Portland<\/a> on April 9, 2023, and Miami had a 53-point opening quarter against Charlotte<\/a> on Nov. 7.<\/p>\n

“Getting to the paint, getting to the basket and finishing. I think that was the catalyst,” Celtics star Jaylen Brown<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

Boston’s 147 points tied their second most in a road game in franchise history. It was also the most points the Heat ever have allowed at home.<\/p>\n

“I thought we executed pretty well,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “There’s times when you execute well and you get good shot after good shot. It just kind of happens. Usually when you’re in moments like that and you start to feel it, you take poor shots. We didn’t do that. We kept fighting for a good look, the next-best look and I thought that kind of kept the momentum going a little bit.”<\/p>\n

Boston led 53-33 at the end of the quarter, after shooting 20 for 28 from the field and 11 for 15 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

The 53 first-quarter points was the second-highest total Boston ever had in a quarter; it had 54 in the fourth quarter of a game against the San Diego Clippers on Feb. 25, 1970. And it was the most points Miami ever allowed in any quarter; the Heat gave up 50 in the fourth quarter of a game at Seattle on Jan. 5, 1990.<\/p>\n

SeasonPlayer40-PT Games2022-23Jayson Tatum111987-88Larry Bird111984-85Larry Bird92000-01Paul Pierce82025-26Jaylen Brown71989-90Larry Bird7– ESPN Research<\/p>\n

Boston made 11 3-pointers in the opening quarter, with Sam Hauser<\/a> going 5 for 5 from beyond the arc while playing all 12 minutes. Brown had 20 points by himself in the quarter — the ninth 20-point quarter of his career, including playoffs — and Hauser finished with 17 in the quarter.<\/p>\n

“This is going to sound crazy, but this is different than the other games that we’re talking about,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Our guys were locked in and competing. There was an exceptional level of shot making on (Boston’s) part to start the game.”<\/p>\n

Brown ended up with 43 points, and Jayson Tatum<\/a> had a 28-point, 18-rebound, 11-assist triple-double — his first of the season, after missing much of it while recovering from the Achilles tendon tear he suffered in last season’s playoffs.<\/p>\n

Tatum now has 83 points, 35 rebounds and 24 assists in his last three games. The last Celtics player to put up those numbers in a three-game span was Larry Bird in April 1990.<\/p>\n

“It was just high-level shotmaking on both ends,” Tatum said.<\/p>\n

Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI — The Boston Celtics had a first quarter like none other in their storied history Wednesday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-693202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693202","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=693202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}