Tatum, Celtics demolish overmatched Raptors to close 2024

The Celtics have been scuffling on both ends, but Tuesday’s game was a get-right performance. 

Jayson Tatum and the Celtics took out some frustrations on an overmatched Raptors team on Tuesday, closing 2024 with the NBA’s largest margin of victory so far this season in a 125-71 victory.

Here are the takeaways. 

1. The Celtics were dominant defensively. 

The Celtics have been scuffling on both ends, but Tuesday’s game was a get-right performance. 

That was particularly the case on the defensive end. The Celtics scored 80 points in the second half. The Raptors scored 71 points in the entire game. 

Joe Mazzulla often cites quarters in which his team allows 25 or fewer as a defensive success. The Celtics managed to hold the Raptors below 25 in every quarter, including 12 in the first, which was a season-low. The Raptors scored just 18 in both the third and the fourth. 

Any time a team loses by 50 points, the numbers will be particularly skewed in one direction, but Toronto shot 10-for-40 from 3-point range and turned the ball over 21 times. That’s a recipe for disaster any night, but particularly on an evening when the Raptors also shot poorly from inside the arc (27-for-86 overall, 31 percent). 

The Raptors are not a good team, and Tuesday’s game didn’t really do much to prove anything for the Celtics, who had lost four of six entering the contest. 

Still, it never hurts during a tough stretch to take care of business against a bad opponent by hammering them into the pavement, and archaeologists may be finding dinosaur bones under TD Garden for a while. 

Payton Pritchard told reporters afterward that the difference on Tuesday was “all defense.”

“I don’t know if you could tell. Just more active,” he said. “Helping each other. We had more steals, more deflections. We’ve just got to continue to just be conscious of making a conscious effort on the defensive end and being active and being in help and shifting.”

2. Jayson Tatum started slow but came alive.

Tatum sounded frustrated after Sunday’s loss to the Pacers, and he came out slow on Tuesday – missing a number of 3-pointers and struggling around the rim. 

By the end of his time on the floor, however, Tatum looked deeply comfortable. 

Tatum sees two bodies coming off the screen with one trailing behind him. Still gets to open space with the step back pic.twitter.com/RRwV4sMwZO

— Pull up shoot  (@NElGHT_) December 31, 2024

As is often the case, Tatum played within himself and didn’t really force the issue; he only took 13 shots, and worked his way to the free-throw line 11 times. He was part of a balanced attack: Three Celtics attempted 13 shots (Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Payton Pritchard), and no one else attempted double-digits. 

3. Jrue Holiday returned to the floor.

Holiday missed the last three games with a right shoulder impingement, but he was back on the floor Tuesday. 

The Celtics missed everything Holiday provides — over the last few games, they have struggled defensively (Holiday’s area of expertise), and their 3-point shooting has been letting them down. On Tuesday, Holiday was 4-for-5 from deep (and 5-for-8 overall). 

“It felt great to be back,” Holiday said. “The shoulder’s okay. It sucks to sit out, so it felt great to be back and obviously be in this arena and play in front of the fans in the last game of the new year.”

Holiday hasn’t had the same success this year from deep as he did last year. 

“Maybe the hit is what helped it,” he joked. “Maybe it got my shoulder in line and now I can see three or two go in. It felt good. I think just obviously basketball’s a physical sport, and being hit a couple times today, a couple times felt good, a couple times hurt. But we’ll manage.”

4. Payton Pritchard caught fire again.

Pritchard seems to have fully recaptured his scoring touch after a brief tough stretch. Against the Bulls, Magic and 76ers — a stretch, perhaps not-so-coincidentally, in which the Celtics lost two out of three — Pritchard never topped double-digits in scoring. Since then, in back-to-back games against the Pacers and Tuesday’s beatdown, he scored 18, 21, and 23 points each game, respectively. 

The Celtics are at their best when Pritchard can come off the bench and keep the scoring rolling right along. On Tuesday, he shot 7-for-13 from the floor and 5-for-8 from three, pouring in 19 points to go with six rebounds and four assists. 

Pritchard credited the defense for the Celtics’ improved offense.

“I feel like the flow is just easier,” he said. “Especially when you’re getting up and down. The ball is just popping. You’re going to play better. You’re going to shoot better.”

5. Al Horford was a big contributor (despite missing all his shots).

Again, a 50-point inspires some odd stats. For instance: Al Horford shot 0-for-7 from the field and 0-for-6 from three, but he was a +20 in the box score (and was a major contributor to the Celtics’ defensive performance). 

“That guy, I would say he does that regardless,” Mazzulla said. “I mean, you can never tell if he’s playing well or not by his effort on both ends of the floor, and he does things that don’t even get on the score sheet. There was a play in front of our bench where he just got a great screen-and-roll, read it right, rolled and got a guy an open look. 

“So he’s a huge stability factor, especially in situations like this where we want to be playing better. He kind of sets that standard.”

6. Joe Mazzulla is tired of hearing about “effort.”

Prior to the game, CLNS reporter Noa Dalzell asked Mazzulla about the tendency of narratives to be about “effort” when a team is struggling on defense.

Mazzulla deeply appreciated the question. 

Here’s Joe Mazzulla’s full interaction with Noa from pregame. It’s the most excited I’ve ever seen him at the podium: https://t.co/GlMhHlIhJT pic.twitter.com/0n5H3EdoQ2

— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) December 31, 2024

“That is the most profound statement in my three years, is what you just said,” he told Dalzell. “The most profound statement of all time.”

Mazzulla was also asked about what it means to him to be in charge of the Celtics at the end of his second calendar year with the team.

“It’s just the responsibility and ownership of what it means to work for the Celtics,” he said. “I mean, this job isn’t what it is if the people before you didn’t set the standard with the winning and the way they won and the tradition of it. So to me, you have to carry that responsibility and the ownership to do that.”

7. Jordan Walsh continued to shine.

Walsh keeps showing flashes. On Tuesday, he played the fourth quarter, which was — as much as Mazzulla hates this term — garbage time, but he scored 10 points including a pull-up 3-pointer and three swooping layups. On the final one, he dribbled around a pick-and-roll, kept his defender in jail on his backside, and then went the rest of the way to the rim. 

Jordan Walsh vs Toronto Raptors

10 PTS
2 AST
4/6 FG
+17

Celtics just beat the Raptors by 54 POINTS 🫢 pic.twitter.com/MxsqV7S8PY

— A Walking Highlight (@11AWH) December 31, 2024

It’s not entirely clear what yet, but something is percolating with Walsh, which is fun to see. 

8. The Celtics start 2025 on the road. 

The Celtics will return to action Thursday against the Timberwolves in Minnesota before they travel to Houston to take on the Rockets on Friday. They will then take on the Thunder and Nuggets before returning to TD Garden to play the Kings next Friday.

“As a competitor, this is going to be a great challenge,” Pritchard said. “Really looking forward to it. We play a lot of good opponents. This isn’t necessarily the championship, but it’s preparing for it. Moments like this, you’ve got to war and get better. 

“Hopefully we win every game. But if we lose, it’s preparation. It’s building for what’s to come in the future. It’s going to be a really good test for us and we’re going to go out there and compete.”