The Boston Celtics entered Friday night hoping to go on their longest win streak of the season against an inexperienced and struggling Detroit Pistons team.
Four is the magic number, the C’s have won a season-high four straight games.
It is fair to say they have capitalized on some weak competition, but you can only play who’s in front of you.
Earlier this season we saw this same Celtics team have slow starts or blow large leads. Not much of an in-between for this squad.
This is not the same Boston team that lost to a COVID-riddled Minnesota squad full of 10 days and G-league callups.
There is a maturation process in the works with this Boston Celtics team built around an incredible defensive scheme and newfound commitment to ball movement.
The old shamrocks would have looked down on a Cade Cunningham-less Pistons unit and lost as a result.
No, no not today as the great Dikembe would say.
The C’s stormed out of the gates behind a quick 10 points from Jaylen Brown and a defensive onslaught from the collective, the likes of which a generally weak Pistons team was not built to handle.
The opening frame ended with the Beantown bullies up against Motor City 28-16.
A common theme of this incantation of the C’s is they generally build on these opening leads. Thus, was the case Friday night, as a twelve-point lead grew to a fifteen-point cushion at halftime.
While the defense was on from the get-go, the offensive punch came in the third led by a surge from recently named All-Star, Jayson Tatum.
We will get into the schematics of the wing’s dynamic third-quarter run in a moment.
The fourth quarter was the tale of two different Celtics teams — starters that are bringing it home and the Gino time kids which almost blew the whole operation.
The final score saw the Boston Celtics hanging on 102-93 against the Pistons after having to reluctantly call back in some of the regulars to finish the job.
Here are 3 takeaways from the C’s win over the Detroit Pistons: