A lot has to happen to get a bucket in the NBA. The right screen creates just enough space to free up the ball. A pass has to be on the money for a player to get a shot off. And even if everything goes right, it’s still a make-or-miss league where a 50% success rate would be great.
So many things hurt the Celtics on Thursday night. Jayson Tatum would surely love to get those six turnovers back. Allowing the Knicks to hit 15-of-35 from behind the arc is tough to swallow. But in the end, it was two triples from Josh Hart on broken plays that did the Celtics in in the final two minutes.
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The Celtics’ magic number to clinch the #2 seed remains at one with two games at TD Garden against the visiting Pelicans tomorrow and the Magic on Sunday. The Knicks host playoff hungry Toronto and Charlotte.
Boston’s championship odds have remained steady all month with our friends at FanDuel and are +550 to raise Banner 19 and the favorite to rep the Eastern Conference in the 2026 NBA Finals.
Jayson Tatum
40 minutes, 24 points (2-10 from 3, 8-10 from the free throw line, 7-22 from the field), 13 rebounds, 8 assists, 6 turnovers, one steal, one block -16
Against the Hornets on March 29th, Tatum put up arguably the highest scoring game of his comeback with 32 points, five rebounds, and eight assists with Brown sidelined. It was an often visceral reminder of his scoring prowess and just home much his size and speed is difficult to defend.
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Even alongside Jaylen, Jayson has become more of an all-around contributor, nearly averaging a triple-double at 24-12-8 over the last four games. He was close again with 24-13-8, but six turnovers and an inefficient 2-or-10 from 3 contributed to his -16 plus/minus on the night.
Grade: B
Jordan Walsh
17 minutes, 5 points (1-2 from 3, 2-4 from the field), 2 rebounds, one assist, 5 turnovers, -9
After re-entering the rotation two weeks ago — including starting for the Jays like he did last night for Brown — Walsh has shown a knack for generating momentum-shifting plays with his rangy defense and ability to find offense in the nooks and crannies of opposing teams’ defenses.
Instead of Tommy Points and stocks, we need a new metric/nickname for plays that shouldn’t happen, but Walsh finds a way. Jordan Jolts? Celtics Sparks?
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Grade: A-
Neemias Queta
24 minutes, 10 points (2-2 from the free throw line, 4-6 from the field), 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, -7
Queta is the living embodiment of “let the star player get his and shut down everybody else.” Over his last five games, he’s averaged 16.4 points on 75% shooting from the field.
With Tatum struggling a bit, Neemy didn’t get a lot of those easy buckets. Instead, he hit the offensive glass for two of his putback buckets and pulled down six total for the game.
Grade: B+
Sam Hauser
31 minutes, 6 points (2-6 from 3, 2-7 from the field), 2 rebounds, 3 assists, +1
With Scheierman dominating in the 4th quarter, Hauser didn’t get his usual run to close the game. When he was in the game, he used his shooting gravity to find teammates for three assists.
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Grade: B
Derrick White
38 minutes, 8 points (0-6 from 3, 4-4 from the free throw line, 2-10 from the field), 3 rebounds, one assist, one steal, -3
So many unofficial end-of-season ballots have Derrick White as an All-Defense First Teamer — I’ve seen him on a few All-NBA lists, too.
Unfortunately, he’s having a Celtics career-worst shooting season and that’s really hurt his box scores. He’s still doing everything else on the floor, but the efficiency is way down in 2025-2026.
Grade: B-
Payton Pritchard
36 minutes, 23 points (3-8 from 3, 10-20 from the field), 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 turnovers, +4
We joked in our CelticsBlog Slack that if Pritchard incorporated Jalen Brunson’s grift game, he’d probably get 4-8 points more from the free throw line. No matter, he carried Boston in the first half with fifteen points with many of his buckets coming at the rim and played more the playmaker after halftime with five assists.
Grade: B+
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Nikola Vucevic
24 minutes, 10 points (2-4 from 3, 4-7 from the field) 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 turnover, +1
Talk about a crash course. After missing fourteen games and virtually all of Tatum’s return, the prize of Boston’s trade deadline has had three games to generate chemistry and get his sea legs back before the playoffs start next week. His first two were duds relative to what we know Vooch can provide on a night-to-night basis. Against the Knicks, the learning curve is still on the upswing.
He hit some big threes in the third quarter and seemed to get into the flow of the read-and-react offense in the fourth. It’s starting to click for the big man.
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Grade: B+
Baylor Scheierman
30 minutes, 20 points (6-7 from 3, 7-8 from the field), 4 rebounds, -1
The 38% three-point shooter caught fire at MSG, hitting 6-of-7 from 3. Along with some solid defense on Brunson, it was a clutch 20-point performance for the Celtics highest riser on the bench.
Grade: A+
DNP-CDs: Luka Garza, Hugo Gonzalez, Ron Harper Jr., Max Shulga, John Tonje, Amari Williams
Inactives: Jaylen Brown
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