Boston Celtics: 1 stud and 1 dud from C’s upsetting loss to Lakers
By Mark Nilon
It’s generally an entertaining event when the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers meet up during the regular season but, unfortunately for shamrocks fans, LA ended up with the upper hand during Tuesday night’s matchup.
While the Cs losing by double digits certainly makes it hard for some to focus in on the positive aspects of the exhibition, in actuality there were quite a number of them.
Unequivocally the biggest bright spot for Ime Udoka’s squad was Jayson Tatum, who came out of the gates ready to ball, hitting his first five shots and dropping 14 points in the first quarter.
A true Tatum-esque performance (something we’ve been missing for the majority of this season) for, by game’s end, the budding superstar went on to drop a game-high 34 points to go along with eight rebounds, three assists, one steal, and one block on 59 percent shooting from the floor and 71 percent shooting from deep.
Sadly, however, his play was not enough to give Boston the advantage, as Los Angeles came away with a 117-102 victory.
Had a healthy Jaylen Brown (sidelined with tightness in his right hamstring) been able to take to the hardwood for the exhibition, perhaps the game may have turned out to be a bit different, for no one outside of Tatum could manage to generate their own offense.
That said, despite his absence, there still proved to be a few contributors from the 12 that saw action who actually managed to make a nice impact on the game alongside the 2x All-Star.
Unfortunately, however, as has been the case throughout this season thus far, there were also several core rotation players who went on to disappoint with their performances.
With this in mind, today we at HH discuss 1 stud and 1 dud from Boston’s underwhelming loss against the Los Angeles Lakers: