Sam Hauser bricked a 3-pointer, Jrue Holiday followed up with his own and Payton Pritchard front-rimmed one from deep. The Celtics missed three 3-pointers over a 10-second span midway through the fourth quarter but rebounded each one before the ball found Derrick White, who hit a teardrop floater.
The Hornets proceeded to call a timeout, and it was their kiss of death.
Shorthanded without Jaylen Brown, on the last leg of their longest road trip of the season and facing a familiar yet inferior foe, the Celtics avoided a letdown. It was a trip that featured some turbulence after back-to-back losses to the Hawks last week, but the Celtics summoned enough energy to close it out the right way with a 118-104 victory over the Hornets on Monday night.
There are just seven regular-season games remaining for these Celtics – with six at home – before the playoffs begin later this month, and while this road trip against mostly inferior teams was certainly not perfect, they felt stronger as they returned to Boston after pocketing more lessons they can use down the road. One of them was resiliency, as they bounced back from a brutal trip to Atlanta with two decisive wins.
“We’re in the unique position of having the best record in the league and we got home-court advantage, all those things, first place, and I think for most of this road trip, we’ve been playing against teams that are fighting for playoff position, play-in spots except for the team tonight,” Jayson Tatum told reporters in Charlotte. “Just understanding that it’s not always going to go the way we expect it to and how are we going to respond? If we lose the first game in Round 1, how are we going to respond?
“Each game just brought something different out of us, and it was good for us to go through that.”
Tatum scored 25 points and Kristaps Porzingis added 20 as the Celtics pulled away in the second half for their 59th win of the season. They can clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the NBA and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs with a victory over the Thunder on Wednesday night back home at TD Garden.
The Celtics faced a unique matchup on Monday, as the Hornets went small by starting old friend Grant Williams at center against Porzingis. Williams had a good game against his former team, finishing with 23 points and seven rebounds, and the Hornets had some success in the first half as they punished the C’s in the paint. But the Celtics ultimately figured things out.
The Hornets dominated the paint in the first half with a 36-18 edge, but the Celtics raised their defensive level and held them to just 12 points inside the paint in the second half. And after a slow shooting start – the Celtics began the game 6-for-20 from the 3-point line – they pulled away on the strength of their balance.
Porzingis scored 11 of his 20 in the third quarter as the Celtics continued to find him for mismatches, Tatum found lanes to the basket and that started to open things up. On the last play of the third quarter, Tatum was double-teamed and found Sam Hauser for a 3-pointer to give the Celtics their largest lead at 16 entering the fourth.
That helped Hauser catch fire, as he hit four 3-pointers inside the first six minutes of the fourth quarter as the Celtics maintained their double-digit advantage despite a push from the Hornets.
The Celtics finished 19-for-53 from distance, with the 53 3-point attempts tying their second-most attempts from deep this season. The C’s are now 27-0 this season when they make at least 18 threes, a product of Joe Mazzulla’s continuous emphasis on taking the right shots.
“Usually, we take good ones,” Mazzulla told reporters. “Those types of shots that we get, especially the corner ones, I think our corner threes have increased a little bit, but it’s a shot that we have to be able to take, that teams are willing to give, but if you make a couple, it forces the defense to guard you differently.
“So, again, our goal is not to necessarily shoot threes, but to get the best shots. … The most important thing is getting into the layers of the defense and taking the best shot that we can.”
White’s floater that came after three offensive rebounds on one possession put the Celtics up 15 with 5:37 to go. That possession was another result of the points of emphasis Mazzulla has preached all season, the concepts of crashing the offensive glass to create more possessions and that good offense and taking the right shots leads to good defense. As the regular season winds down, the Celtics have stayed consistent in those areas.
“The guys have taken pride in that, and that puts us in position to win because we keep getting good shots,” Mazzulla said. “That was a really fun possession. I enjoyed it.”
