The first half of the Boston Celtics’ game against the Utah Jazz didn’t go according to plan for Sam Hauser. He shot just 1-of-6 from deep, and the Jazz were keeping pace with the Jayson Tatum-less Celtics. Jaylen Brown was cold, Hauser was cold, and Payton Pritchard was cold. Derrick White had it going, but he needed help.
But when the third quarter came around, a new wave of basketball life rushed into Hauser. He went from being unable to hit the ocean if he was shooting from a boat to nailing almost every shot he took. It was an incredible scene to watch unfold.
And there was nothing the Jazz could do about it.
Sam Hauser and Celtics made NBA history
Even Hauser was filled with consolation once the shots started to fall. His relief was completely visible, too, as he was clearly getting frustrated when he was missing some of his threes in the first half.
“Yeah, I gotta be beter with that,” Hauser said with a laugh via Noa Dalzell of SB Nation. “Sometimes, when you miss open ones you think you should make, you just get mad and frustrated real easy. So, I’ve been working on it this year a little bit. But sometimes you just need to let it out.”
Hauser finished the game with a career-high 33 points to go along with six rebounds, a rebound, and a steal. He shot 11-of-23 from the field and 9-of-19 from behind the three-point arc. In the third quarter alone, Hauser shot 7-of-10 from three-point range.
Utah made a huge run in the fourth quarter, but the Celtics were able to hold on and earn the victory. Hauser hit one more three in the fourth quarter, and that was the one that led to NBA history.
With Hauser nailing nine threes in the game on Monday night, the Celtics became the first team in league history to have four different players to hit nine or more threes in a game in a single season—Hauser, Pritchard, White, and Tatum.
White and Pritchard both did it in the same game against the Portland Trail Blazers last week (becoming the first duo to do it in the same game), and Tatum did it in a win over the Chicago Bulls on December 21.
Boston takes more threes per game than any team in NBA history, so it’s not too surprising to see them breaking three-point records. But the fact that they have four shooters talented enough to break another record in this way shows that they are way more than just a volume-oriented team.