As the Boston Celtics hosted the rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama for the opening game of what promises to be an impressive NBA career on Wednesday night, the TD Garden audience got a taste of what’s to come. The Celtics won 117-98, despite the young phenom’s great performance, as they cruised over a youthful San Antonio squad. It was the Spurs’ second blowout loss of the season.
The Celtics were led by a trio of players—Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday—who scored 20 points or more and a combined 67 points. On that night, they oversaw a well-rounded effort from a Boston squad that was missing key players; each player who saw action scored twice. San Antonio couldn’t stay up despite another outstanding performance by 19-year-old Wembanyama (27 points on 10-of-19 shooting) and 21 points from Devin Vassell; but, the Spurs’ supporting cast failed to provide enough firepower.
Joe Mazzulla, coach of the Celtics, went with a big lineup to face the towering youngster from San Antonio because Derrick White (ankle) and Kristaps Porzingis (knee) were absent. As is his wont, Al Horford took a slot, but reserve center Luke Kornet was the unexpecteԀ second substitute. It was obvious that a major focus of this figҺt was overcoming Wembanyama’s exceptional size and talent.
That focus didn’t appear to be helpful at first. With 10 points (two from beyond the arc) in the opening five minutes of play, Wembanyama was hоt early and often. The Celtics gave up three early оffensive rebounds as they failed to maintain possession of the glass against Wembanyama and Jeremy Sochan of San Antonio. You could tell the Spurs were playing better basketball on the court as of late, despite their dismal record.
The Celtics weren’t caught unawares, but a rout didn’t appear likely either. The Spurs were careful with Wembanyama’s minutes, so he didn’t play for the rest of the first quarter, and San Antonio’s defense couldn’t have held a candle to Boston’s оffensive output. The Celtics outscored the Spurs by a wide margin, thanks to explosive first halves from Tatum, Brown, and Holiday. At the start of the second quarter, they had a five-point lead (30-25).
San Antonio’s problem was that the supporting cast surrounding Wemby didn’t do nearly enough to help the cause. Only one Spur, Malaki Branham, kicked more than two field goals, and that was the rookie, who scored fourteen points in the first half. Holiday and Tatum, on the other hand, were quite hоt. Holiday scored 14 points in the first quarter, matching his career high set against Toronto, and Tatum added 17 points in the second quarter. The Celtics took a 40-point lead into halftime and carried it into the second half with a 70-45 edge.
It’s promising to observe Holiday playing a somewhat more active part in the Boston offense in the previous two games. Since there is only one basketball, every outstanding player on this squad has had to cut back in some way for the team’s success, but no one has cut back more than Holiday. This season, he has fallen from 19.3 points per game on a 25% usage rate in his last year with the Bucks to 13.9 points per game and 17.2 points per game. He has graciously taken on a smaller role, but it’s encouraging to see that he can still provide a roar when the team needs it.
In the third quarter, San Antonio staged a comeback, partially due to the performance of Devin Vassell. In the middle of the quarter, they went on a 9-0 run that helped them trim the Celtics’ lead to 14. The city of Boston, however, had constructed a enough barrier to weather the surge. The Spurs were unable to close the gap thanks to Tatum, Brown, and Holiday’s enduring excellence as well as the spirited play of Payton Pritchard and Neemias Queta. In spite of San Antonio scoring 33 points in the third quarter, the Celtics carried a 16-point lead into the fourth quarter, 94-78.
The fourth didn’t have much action. The quarter began with the Celtics cruising to an 11-2 lead, and the youthful and disorganized Spurs offense would never have a chance to recover from a 25-point deficit with nine minutes to play. The rest was just a question of running out the clock, even though Mazzulla, clearly irritated, demanded a timeout and contested an out-of-bounds call in the game’s final moments. The challenge was won by him, if that matters. About one minute after the game started, the Celtics’ bench came into play.
At 7:30 PM EST on ESPN, the Celtics will play Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, who are the defending champions.