The Boston Celtics went into the Toyota Center and defeated the Houston Rockets 109-86 on the second night of a back-to-back of a tough four-game road trip.
It was a complete team effort throughout, but the guard play was elite on both ends of the court and it really pushed the Celtics over the hump in Houston.
The trio of Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard combined for 57-points with 10 made 3-pointers, seven assists, and 12 rebounds.
They shared the court together for 11-minutes in Houston:
- 163.6 OFF RTG
- 85.7 DEF RTG
- 77.9 NET
- 46.7 AST%
- 22.6 AST Ratio
- 63.2 REB%
Holiday did most of his work in the first half, but he finished the game with 14-points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field and made two of his five 3-point attempts. He added four assists and four rebounds while playing great defense throughout the game.
White was having a complete game during the first half. At halftime, he logged 12-points on four made threes, three rebounds, and an assist. In the third quarter, he had five-points, one rebound, and one assist. He then added in another six-points in the fourth quarter.
During postgame on Thursday in Minnesota, Joe Mazzulla said that White essentially runs the team during games without Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown, and during the stretches of time in the second and fourth quarters when Tatum is off the floor.
“When Jaylen or Jayson doesn’t play, he plays the whole second and the whole fourth and gets those possessions to where he impacts the game… he’s just big time because he has the ability to impact the game- whether he’s heavily involved in offense or not.”
Pritchard was once again a superstar in his role, which has become a common occurrence this season. He finished the game scoring 20-points on 8-of-10 shooting overall while going 4-of-6 from behind the arc. He also had four rebounds and two assists.
There was a moment in the first half where Pritchard was talking to some of the coaches on Houston’s bench, specifically Ime Udoka and Ben Sullivan. Both Udoka and Sullivan are from the Portland area and watched Pritchard play basketball growing up as a kid.
It was a complete team effort in Houston, but it was the elite play from Holiday, White, and Pritchard as a unit that really pushed Boston to victory.
Boston is now 2-0 on their first four-game road trip of the month. They play OKC next and will need another complete performance to take a win against the hottest team in the NBA right now.
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Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran, The Boston Globe, Getty Images
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