What Can Brown Do For You? Handle His Business - and Win - Without Tatum

No Jayson Tatum? No problem for Jaylen Brown (36 points) who led the Celtics surge with Jayson Tatum (ankle) out for the first time this season.

Sunday night was the first time this season that the Boston Celtics took to the floor without Jayson Tatum.

They have the best record in the NBA, and Tatum’s play has been instrumental in driving that success. 

But their success, while certainly fueled by Tatum’s MVP-esque play this season, is far from being a one-man show. 

And for good measure, folks saw this first-hand on Sunday as the Celtics had no problem beating Washington, 130-121, while Tatum and his 30.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.2 blocked shots per game sat this one out with an ankle injury. 

As impressive as Tatum and the Celtics have been this season, these are the kind of games that give credence to the belief many have that Boston is poised to bring home Banner 18 this season. 

While Washington isn’t considered one of the top-tier teams in the NBA, the way the Celtics went about dismantling the Wizards from the outset, without Tatum, was impressive. 

It served as a reminder that Boston, maybe more than any other team in the NBA, has found that secret sauce of balancing top-shelf talent with youth and chemistry. 

No surprise, much of the scoring load fell upon the shoulders of Jaylen Brown who like Tatum, is also having an All-Star caliber season. He scored 17 of his game-high 36 points in the first half which ended with the Celtics ahead 72-55. 

Derrick White got the starting nod with Tatum out and did his best to make Celtics fans not miss the three-time All-Star too much. 

White was one of six double-digit scorers for Boston, scoring 10 of his 15 points in the first half.  

Tatum has shown himself to be one of the more durable players since Boston drafted him with the third overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. Since then, Tatum missed a total of 25 games prior to Sunday. In those 25 games, Boston has a 9-16 record. 

“We have depth; we talk about it all the time,” Celtics interim head coach Joe Mazzulla said shortly after announcing Tatum would not play tonight. “It’s important we put our guys in the best situation for us to execute on the offensive end.”

They did that all game long, spending most of the game shooting better than 50 percent from the field. 

But by no means was it a game in which the Celtics’ play didn’t raise some concerns going forward. 

This game felt very much like an offensive shoot-out, the kind of game Boston has been winning most of this season. 

The defensive struggles led to Boston having to go back to some of the starters when the Celtics’ lead was cut to 119-107 with 5:51 to play.

Boston’s starting five minus Al Horford (Luke Kornet was on the floor instead of Horford) was back on the floor, looking to do just enough to close out a game in which they led by as many as 26 points.

Horford, who had 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting, replaced Kornet with 4:28 remaining as Boston closed out the game to improve upon their league-best record (16-4).

But these players know the path toward a championship has to include better, more consistent play defensively. 

I talked with Marcus Smart about this not that long ago. 

“We know defense wins championships,” he said. “We’re not where we would like to be at that end of the floor, but we’re going to keep getting better, keep working at it, get a guy like Rob (Williams) back and we’ll be even tougher for teams to deal with, at both ends of the floor.”

Here are the Stars, Studs and Uh-uhs from Boston’s win over Washington.

STARS

Jaylen Brown: Lots of curiosity about how a Jaylen Brown-led team would look for one night. We saw that on Sunday with Brown leading the charge in a 130-121 win over the Wizards. He would lead all scorers with 36 points on 13-for-23 shooting to go with five rebounds and two assists.

STUDS

Marcus Smart: The longest-tenured Celtic, more times than not, gives the team exactly what they need from him. This was a bully-ball kind of game for Smart who used his frame to post-up Washington guards which opened things up for him to be a dual threat as a scorer and passer out of the post. He finished the game with 14 points along with seven assists and four rebounds. 

Bradley Beal: The Celtics have seen enough of Bradley Beal to know he’s a threat to go off and have a big scoring game whenever he’s on the floor. Boston did a solid job of not letting him get into any kind of scoring rhythm, with Beal scoring most of his team-high 30 points after the game was all but decided. 

UH-UHS

Grant Williams: When a team shoots as well as Boston did on Sunday, somebody has to be off right? That was Grant Williams. He did a nice job on the boards, finishing with seven rebounds. But his shot-making (2-for-7 from the field) was off even though most of his attempts were open or lightly contested.

Celtics defense: They continue to out-shoot teams and the vibes are good. But the Celtics have to start showing signs of tightening up their defense. Last season, Boston had the league’s top-rated defense. Prior to Sunday’s game, Boston’s defensive rating ranks 16th in the league - and that’s an improvement on where they were just a couple of weeks ago. Washington connected on 53.7 percent of its shots from the field on Sunday. The Wizards came into the game ranked 17th in the NBA in field goal percentage (.465) this season.