The Boston Celtics got back on track on Friday night at the TD Garden for the first In-Season Tournament game on their schedule against a shorthanded Brooklyn Nets team, winning 121-107.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for 51-points as the two stars led all scorers on the night. And Jrue Holiday was just short of a triple-double for the second time this season against this Nets team. He finished the night with 13-points, 12-rebounds, and nine assists.

The big takeaway of this game, however, was the bench. Boston’s bench produced 37-points between Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet, and Oshae Brissett.

Hauser connected on 5-of-10 from behind the arc, leading the bench with 15-points and also adding two rebounds and an assists. He’s becoming more comfortable on the court and we’re starting to see him do a little more.

After the game, head coach Joe Mazzulla said Pritchard “changed the game for us tonight” in what was a much needed bounce-back game for him after not scoring in the last three games.

Pritchard finished the game with 13-points, five rounds, and three assists. Four of his five rebounds were offensive, which created eight second chance points for Boston.

Brown also credited Pritchard’s work and role for the Celtics this season during his postgame press conference.

“Him playing well and him being confident in himself is going to be good for us down the line. Payton is a big part of what we do.”

Defensively, I thought the team did well. As I mentioned earlier, this was a very small and shorthanded Brooklyn team and you can see that in the rebound battle of 52-46.

This was the first night of the first back-to-back of the season for the Celtics, as they’ll be hosting the Toronto Raptors on Saturday night.

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