After dropping their last two games, the Celtics got back in the win column Thursday night with a 124-95 win over the Mavericks, snapping Dallas' league-best seven-game winning streak in the process.
Led by Jayson Tatum, who notched his second career triple-double with 29 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists (all of which were team-highs), the Celtics got back to playing their winning brand of basketball.
It started early in the first quarter when they got major contributions off the bench. Early foul trouble for Jaylen Brown and Derrick White forced Joe Mazzulla to turn to the bench early, and after struggling in their last two games, the bench stepped up in a big way.
Boston went on a 22-11 first-quarter run, with 18 of the points coming from the bench. Led by Grant Williams, who finished with a team-high plus-minus of +25, and Malcolm Brogdon, the Celtics' bench outscored the Mavericks bench 43-34.
The Celtics also seemed to find their stroke from three-point range in the first half, much to the credit of their ball movement. In the first half, the Celtics shot 10-of-23 (43.5%) from deep, with all 10 of those threes assisted. On the night, 29 of the Celtics' 41 made baskets (70%) were assisted. The ball movement was incredible for the Celtics all night long, which was a major contributor to their 48.8% shooting percentage.
Though the Celtics would cool off from deep in the second half, they responded in a very encouraging way. After opening the third quarter 0-for-3 from deep, they started to get downhill, specifically Tatum and Brown.
The Jays would go right to the rim the next four possessions and would get fouled on three of them, attempting six free throws and making five, with the other bucket coming on this nasty Euro step from Tatum.
It turned into a 7-0 run for the Celtics before Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd called a timeout.
Though Dallas was missing a lot of shots, the Celtics looked much better on the defensive end of the floor Thursday night. Boston held MVP candidate Luka Doncic to just 23 points. It was just the seventh time this season Doncic has been held under 25 points in a game.
The Celtics got back to doing the things they do best on Thursday night, which made for a nice bounce-back game. Boston will now travel to San Antonio to take on old friends Romeo Langford, Josh Richardson and Noah Vonleh, as they play the Spurs Saturday night at 6 p.m. ET.
