– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
BOSTON — In a somewhat listless first quarter for the Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown appeared to be the only player wearing white seemingly up for the fight to snap his team out of its current funk. In the final three quarters, however, the rest of his teammates showed up and showed out as the Celtics took care of business in the way that it usually has done lately against the Washington Wizards.
Brown scored a game-high 35 points to lead six Celtics players in double figures as Boston defeated the Wizards 136-107 inside TD Garden on Wednesday evening. Josh Minott had 21 points while Neemias Queta chipped in with 15 points, 12 rebounds and five assists as the Celtics snapped a two-game losing streak.
While Brown scored 16 of the 26 points for Boston in the first quarter, the Celtics found themselves down by 11 after the frame, mainly due to the 4-for-15 shooting from all the other players outside of Jaylen and because Boston missed its first eight three-point attempts of the game — a worrying trend given that Boston was a combined 25-for-95 (26 percent) from deep in consecutive home losses to Houston and Utah.
Minott made back-to-back threes right before the end of the first quarter, and that finally opened the floodgates as Boston exploded for a 42-point second quarter that propelled it to a 70-60 halftime lead. This time it was Payton Pritchard, who sat most of the first quarter after picking up two early fouls, who ended up scoring 16 points in a period the Celtics shot 67 percent from the field (16-for-24) in the second.
After those first eight misses from deep, the Celtics went 16-for-33 from three, a more-than-healthy 48 percent.
Alex Sarr scored 31 points to lead the Wizards, who have lost six straight. Julian Champagnie was the only Washington starter in double figures in scoring with 12. Marvin Bagley III (11 points) and Malaki Branham (10) led a bench that scored 51 points combined.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Wednesday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 33 pictures in total.
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
