Boston Celtics: Studs and a dud from blowout win over Portland Trail Blazers

In an up and down season for the Boston Celtics, you never quite know what team you’re going to get on any given night.

After a loss to the Utah Jazz on the road where the Cs went for 130 but ceded 137 the night prior, Ime Udoka’s squad continued to pour it on offensively during their Saturday night visit to the Moda Center to the tune of 145 points.

The winning effort was marked by a 56% shooting effort from the field for Boston, which was somehow outdone by their 3-point shooting percentage, which ended a hair below 57% on 37 attempts.

It helped that the Cs also won the rebound and assist battles over Portland, who continues to miss Damian Lillard who is out with lower abdominal tendinopathy. The Trail Blazers got a 21 point performance from his lineup replacement, Dennis Smith Jr., as C.J. McCollum also went for 24 points, but there were no moral victories for a team that fell to just one game ahead of the Sacramento Kings for the #11 seed in the Western Conference…which of course doesn’t come with an NBA Play-in spot.

For the Celtics, the win propels them to the #7 seed, where they ended up last season during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season. They will be staying out west to cap off their pacific rim road trip with matchups against the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Phoenix Suns this week.

Before we move on to coverage of the C’s second matchup against their historical rival Lakers, let’s dish out the ‘stud’ and ‘dud’ labels from last night’s game: