Atlanta Hawks<\/a> were playing reasonably strong basketball heading into Wednesday\u2019s game, winners of four of their last five games before falling to the Celtics (sans Jrue Holiday). The two teams were closely knotted for much of the night, before the Celtics surged in the fourth to put the Hawks to bed. The Wizards game was uglier \u2014 the Celtics defense had no answers for a lowly Washington offense, allowing 81 first half points before reclaiming the lead behind a 36-16 third quarter. <\/p>\nSince losing seven straight games in January, the Miami Heat have regained some of their mojo. Similar to Atlanta, they won four of their past five games heading into their tilt with the Celtics, and though they lacked the services of Jimmy Butler (personal reasons), they gave Boston all they could handle. The Celtics took the lead at the end of the first quarter and never relinquished it, leading by as many as 12 points but having to fend off a late Miami surge to hang onto the win.<\/p>\n
Finally, the Celtics closed out the pre-break stretch on a pretty decent note. Facing a home-and-home series with the Nets, they comfortably fended off Brooklyn in the first game behind a 41-point outing from Jayson Tatum, before absolutely busting the doors down in the second. A 50-point whalloping of the Nets at TD Garden has to feel good, as does becoming just the third team in NBA history to win multiple games by 50+ points in a single season. Tatum and the rest of the starters hit the bench especially early in a game where only Payton Pritchard eclipsed the 30-minute mark, providing an early start to an eight-day vacation.<\/p>\n\n Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports<\/cite>Player of the Week: Kristaps Porzingis<\/h3>\n4 GP, 28 MPG, 26.3 PPG (60% FG, 56% 3PT), 7 REB, 1.5 BLK, +28<\/h3>\n It\u2019s been difficult to find a window to talk about Porzingis in this space. Though he\u2019s played at a consistently high level all season long and the Celtics have looked especially potent when he takes the court, a number of nagging injuries and the organization\u2019s highly cautious approach to his health have made it quite rare to see the colossal big man to play all of the team\u2019s games in a given week.<\/p>\n
Indeed, we\u2019re still missing a game here \u2014 he sat out the road win against Brooklyn as part of his usual back-to-back rest swap with Horford \u2014 but the other four are compelling enough to take him over the top. Apologies to Tatum, who had another strong week, but it\u2019s time, at last, to talk about the unicorn in the room.<\/p>\n
On the macro level, Porzingis is having the best season of his career on a per-minute basis. He\u2019s scoring 20 points per game, grabbing seven rebounds and swatting about two shots, par for the course for his standards, but his efficiency has found a whole new level. Shooting 64% inside the arc and 37% behind it, he\u2019s recording a comical 60% effective field goal percentage that easily breezes past his previous career high (56.5%, last season). Defensively, he\u2019s as effective of a deterrent as he\u2019s been in his career, averaging 1.9 blocks per game and allowing a defensive field goal percentage of 42.5%, best among centers facing at least 15 attempts per game, per NBA Stats.<\/p>\n
Offensively, his hyper-efficiency was on display in these games. Porzingis maximized every shot attempt he saw during this stretch, and apart from the Brooklyn blowout, the Celtics needed every point. He eclipsed the 30-point threshold against Atlanta and Washington and tacked on 25 against Miami, and his averages for the week would look even gaudier if his services had been necessary for more than just 16 minutes against Brooklyn \u2014 16 minutes in which he still managed 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting. He made at least two threes and blocked a shot in each game. That combination of skills may not be quite as rare as it was when Porzingis entered the league in 2015, but we can\u2019t take for granted its value.<\/p>\n
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