Jayson Tatum takes over late, leads Celtics to win over short-handed Nuggets: 7 takeaways
Jayson Tatum and the Celtics pulled out a 118-106 win over the Nuggets in a game that featured a Kristaps Porzingis injury scare.
Jayson Tatum and the Celtics closed a tough road trip with a 118-106 victory over the Nuggets (sans Nikola Jokic) on Tuesday, pulling away in the fourth quarter for a double-digit win.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum took over late.
Tatum sat the first four minutes of the final period, but when he returned, he took over on both ends, scoring seven of his 29 points in the final seven minutes to go with a pair of assists, a steal and a block.
On a night when the Celtics weren’t particularly efficient and weren’t particularly impressive from deep, they rode Tatum for lengthy stretches, even though Tatum himself was off from 3-point range.
The good news for the Celtics? Tatum has been elite in isolation this season – 1.20 points per possession entering Tuesday’s game, by far the best mark in the NBA – and he continued to shine against the Nuggets. Even Peyton Watson, a very promising young wing defender for the Nuggets, didn’t really have anything for the Celtics’ MVP candidate.
Tatum finished 11-for-23, but he was 10-for-15 inside the arc (and an icy 1-for-9 outside of it). His first eight field goals were all either dunks or layups, and he didn’t make a jumper until he finally made his first three of the game with just under two minutes remaining in the third quarter.
As the Celtics’ slump from 3-point range continues, Tatum’s ability to get to the rim has taken on more importance – he’s shooting 65.6 percent inside the arc this season.
A scary moment with Porzingis (who was fine).
Porzingis had a huge first quarter even though he needed to take a break at the two-minute mark after crumpling to the ground in a scary moment for Celtics fans.
The good news for Porzingis? He returned before the quarter was finished, because the injury wasn’t serious (he got kicked in the groin).
The bad news? It felt pretty serious in the moment.
“It was honestly pretty painful, I’m not going to lie,” Porzingis told reporters afterward. “But it went away pretty quick, so it’s all good. I know I scared everybody, but it’s all good.”
Porzingis had a nice game, especially early on – he scored 15 of his 25 points in the first quarter. With Jokic out, Porzingis dominated the offensive glass in particular – he pulled down five offensive rebounds and scored put-back buckets on four of them.
Porzingis got dunked on (and then he didn’t).
In the first half, Michael Porter Jr. brought down a massive one-handed sledgehammer on Porzingis, who tried and failed to meet him at the rim.
Unphased, Porzingis went up to challenge DeAndre Jordan in the second half with a very different result.
Challenging 2025 DeAndre Jordan is a little different than challenging him 5-10 years ago might have been.
Still, credit to Porzingis for risking his pride a second time in the same game.
Jrue Holiday and Al Horford made big shots.
The Celtics were once again somewhat cold from three (12-for-35 for 34 percent, but 5-for-16 in the first half). Two players, however, found the range even though they haven’t been entirely consistent this year: Jrue Holiday and Al Horford, who shot 3-for-7 and 3-for-5 respectively.
Most notably, Holiday – who scored 19 points – made all three of his triples in the second half, including one with just over seven minutes remaining that pushed the Celtics’ lead from two to five as they embarked on the run that essentially put the game out of reach for the Nuggets.
Horford, meanwhile, buried his third 3-pointer a minute later – capping a quick 10-0 run at the six-minute mark as the Celtics took a 103-93 lead.
When the Celtics make 3-pointers, a close game can become a blowout pretty quickly.
Incidentally, the Celtics are now 47-2 all-time when Holiday scores 14 or more points.
Sam Hauser: High-flying defender.
Late in the third quarter, Hauser flew in from behind Porter Jr. and rejected a dunk attempt by the Nuggets forward, only to be whistled for a foul. An indignant Hauser motioned that the bench should review the call, and when replays showed that Hauser had indeed blocked the dunk cleanly, they obliged.
The moment was notable partly because Hauser doesn’t get a lot of blocks and understandably seemed to want credit where it was due.
But it was also a good sign for Hauser, who has been dealing with back issues this season and hasn’t always looked like himself physically.
He finished with nine points on 3-for-5 shooting, two rebounds and – crucially – one block.
The Celtics finished the road trip 3-1.
The road trip is over, and it was unquestionably a success, albeit a somewhat muted one.
Entering the trip, a 3-1 result felt optimistic. The back-to-back from Minnesota to Houston was going to be a challenge. A 3:30 start time against the Thunder less than 48 hours after the Rockets game was perhaps under-discussed in an understandable effort to avoid making excuses. The Nuggets are tough even during a down year, particularly at altitude. Three wins in four attempts is good work.
And yet, while the Celtics found ways to win, they didn’t entirely resolve the issues that led to their 5-5 stretch before the road trip. Most notably, the 3-point shooting is still lackluster, and while it’s much too far to say “when the Celtics’ shooting is mediocre, they are mediocre,” it’s obviously fair to say that if they don’t shoot well, they are less formidable.
The Celtics also didn’t exactly dominate Tuesday’s game, even though Jokic – the NBA’s plus/minus king by a mile – was ill and couldn’t play. They grinded out a nice win and showed some resilience down the stretch, but if it doesn’t feel like the Celtics are returning to Boston as conquering heroes despite going 3-1, the fact that they couldn’t blow out a team that plays like it belongs in the lottery without its superstar probably has something to do with it.
Of course, the standards to which the Celtics are held are undeniably inflated. They are expected to be perfect because they set the bar so high for themselves – an elite team with back-to-back aspirations who have proved over their last five outings that they can win even if a team takes away their preferred volume of 3-pointers. It’s hard to worry excessively about a team on pace for 59 wins with a net rating of +11 (per Cleaning the Glass) this season.
That’s not to say the Celtics are above question – they aren’t invincible, especially when they miss 3-pointers, and hyper-aggressive defenses like the Magic and Thunder have shown that there are ways to trip them up.
But the Celtics have maintained a lot of elite metrics, and they are finding a lot of different ways to win.
Not bad for a championship hangover.
Returning home
The Celtics will now head back to TD Garden for a matchup with the Kings on Friday before the Pelicans come to town on Sunday. After a busy stretch, they now play just three games in eight days.
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