What do you get when you combine the Celtics’ thinnest roster of the season with one of Jayson Tatum’s shakiest showings of 2024-25?
Evidently, an easy Boston victory.
Down two starters and two of its top reserves, the Celtics blew out a similarly shorthanded Miami Heat squad 108-89 on Monday night at TD Garden.
Jaylen Brown led Boston with 29 points on 8-of-21 shooting, with Payton Pritchard delivering another stellar performance off the bench (25 points on 10-of-17, including 5-of-12 from 3-point range). Derrick White added 19 points, eight assists and six rebounds in his return from a foot injury, and Luke Kornet tied his career high with six blocked shots.
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Tatum had 18 points and 11 rebounds and committed a season-high six turnovers.
Miami, which was playing without All-Star Jimmy Butler and five other players, shot 35.6% from the floor and 22.9% from three and trailed by double digits for most of the second half.
Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford sat out on the second night of a back-to-back, with the previous night’s injury issues forcing head coach Joe Mazzulla to play both in a road loss to Cleveland rather than staggering their games off. Jrue Holiday also was ruled out with a knee injury, and Sam Hauser was a late scratch for personal reasons, leaving Boston without four of its core rotation players.
Tatum, Brown and White all were listed as questionable before getting the green light, with Brown and White returning after missing the Cavaliers game. Mazzulla called Brown (illness) a game-time decision, and his availability was not confirmed until after his pregame warmup.
From that group, Mazzulla assembled a brand-new starting lineup, plucking Kornet and Jordan Walsh off the bench to join Tatum, Brown and White. It was just the second career start for Walsh, a 2024 second-round draft pick who was coming off back-to-back healthy DNPs and hadn’t played more than eight minutes in any game since Nov. 8.
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The Celtics fell into an early 7-0 hole but reeled off a 17-2 run to surge ahead. Kornet fueled that push with three makes at the rim, including one off a White alley-oop.
Boston is the NBA’s most prolific 3-point shooting team, but its first made three didn’t come until the 5:44 mark of the first quarter, after Mazzulla had subbed in an almost entirely new second unit that surrounded Tatum with Pritchard, Neemias Queta, Xavier Tillman and Drew Peterson.
Peterson is a two-way player who’d seen minimal NBA playing time before his surprise 25-minute shift Sunday night. Tillman has struggled to crack the rotation since the opening week of the season.
Tatum hit two threes after the line change but went just 3-for-10 from the floor in the first quarter. The Celtics took a slim 28-25 lead into the second.
That advantage then spiked thanks to Pritchard and Brown, who combined to score Boston’s next 14 points. Two threes from White and one from Peterson helped the Celtics stretch their lead to 17 points, and it sat at 60-45 at halftime.
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The second quarter also featured three Kornet blocks and a cameo from Baylor Scheierman — the first meaningful minutes of the first-round draft pick’s young career. Scheierman, who’s been developing in the G League, notched a rebound, an assist and a steal and was a plus-7, though he looked like he’s still adjusting to the speed of the NBA game.
The Celtics slogged through an ugly start to the second half that included Tatum turnovers on three consecutive possessions and a 7-0 Miami run. The Heat got to within eight before Boston recovered, holding the visitors to one made field goal over the next seven minutes. By the time that slump ended, the rout was on, with a Brown 3-pointer putting the Celtics up 78-57 with 3:05 remaining in the third.
Another of Pritchard’s patented buzzer-beaters — this one a slick driving layup rather than a long-range three — extended Boston’s lead to 22 entering the final quarter. The Celtics outscored the Heat 25-18 in the third despite turning the ball over nine times.
This was the fourth straight 20-point performance for Pritchard, who continues to strengthen his case for NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
Peterson, who spent time with Miami’s G League affiliate as an undrafted rookie last season, stared down the Heat bench after hitting a fourth-quarter 3-pointer. The 6-foot-9 wing showed potential in his fill-in stints this week, finishing Monday’s game with seven points on 2-of-5 shooting and seven rebounds.
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Mazzulla emptied what was left of his bench in the final minutes, inserting JD Davison and Jaden Springer with the victory secured.
The Celtics will host the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday before playing another back-to-back against Milwaukee and Memphis on Friday and Saturday. They’ll also find out their NBA Cup fate on Tuesday, as the outcomes of Knicks-Magic and Bucks-Pistons will determine whether Boston advances to the knockout rounds of the in-season tournament.
Smoke from the Canadian wildfires that engulfed the Northeast United States in a haze hardly let up in Greater Boston.
But Saturday’s rain may have cleared the skies just in time for the World Cup final in New Jersey on Sunday.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued an air quality alert that the fine particles from smoke across the entire state averaged at a level “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,” which includes people “with lung or heart disease, older adults, and children.”
Fine particulates that are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter (PM2.5) were tracked at a level of 130, which the agency rates as in the middle of the 101-150 “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,” at multiple locations in the city and in nearby municipalities.
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The U.S. Air Quality Index also recorded a 130 rating for much of the region but the city itself was rated at 166 near South Station, with nearby locations including Quincy, Chelsea, and Lynn hovering around 160 PM2.5. This concentration falls under the “Unhealthy” category.
Similar warnings were issued throughout much of the country Saturday.
At MetLife Stadium, where the World Cup final is scheduled to take place, the sky was the same thick, soupy gray it has been for days, even after a drenching thunderstorm prompted warnings of flash flooding and forced the Spanish national team to suspend its last outdoor training session ahead of the clash with Argentina.
Saturday’s storm front will largely move the smoke out of the Northeast before the final between Spain and Argentina, said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.
“There could be some lingering smoke that would make things hazy, but very faint,” Roys said. “In terms of the thickest smoke, the smoke that has really been eye-popping and leads to poor air quality, that is not expected across New York City or much of the Northeast.”
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The air quality index shows an improvement from unhealthy air for sensitive groups on Saturday to “moderate” air quality Sunday in East Rutherford, which means little to no health risk for the general public.
BOSTON (WHDH) – Boston police are investigating a shooting in Allston on Friday night that left a man dead, officials said.
Officers responding to a report of a person shot in the area of 20 Rugg Road around 10:30 p.m. found a man inside suffering from a gunshot wound, according to Boston police. Boston EMS treated him on-scene before he was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His name has not been released.
No arrests have been made.
No additional information was immediately available.
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This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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Ariana Grande is coming to Boston next week and one of her biggest fans in Massachusetts will be there after resolving a ticket issue with StubHub.
Kelsie Duest of Hopedale had two front row balcony seats to Grande’s show on July 23 at TD Garden. Her brother bought them for her on StubHub last year. Her mother said it cost nearly $1,400 for the pair.
But about a month later, Sharon Duest checked her Apple Wallet and noticed the tickets were invalid. She said StubHub offered them a choice, take a refund or different tickets.
Kelsie Duest has two seats to Ariana Grande’s show on July 23 at TD Garden in Boston.
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CBS Boston
Duest ended up accepting the tickets that were offered, only to learn they were obstructed view seats behind the stage and Kelsie wouldn’t be able to see Grande during parts of the concert.
Concerned that her daughter, who has Down syndrome, would miss out on the experience of seeing Grande on stage, Duest tried calling and emailing Stubhub hoping to get better seats.
“We didn’t want anything for free. We just wanted just the tickets that we had,” she told WBZ-TV.
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With the concert coming up soon, the Duests reached out to the I-Team’s Call for Action for help, who contacted StubHub.
“We’re so sorry about the issues Sharon experienced with their ticket order, especially given how meaningful this concert is to Kelsie,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
“We understand how disappointing and stressful that situation was. Our Customer Care team worked with them to resolve the issue and ultimately secured upgraded replacement tickets in a section in front of where the original seats were located, allowing them to attend the show with an improved view.”
Kelsie and her mom now have club seats closer to the stage than the tickets they originally purchased.
“I know we couldn’t have done this without you guys. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” Sharon Duest said.
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A good rule of thumb with electronic tickets is to always check on them to confirm that they remain valid up until the event. You should also keep good records in case you need a refund or a replacement.
