On Saturday evening, the Boston Celtics continued their winning ways with a blowout road win over the Atlanta Hawks by a score of 132-106. Amazingly, this game was not nearly as close as the final score suggested, with Atlanta outscoring Boston by 17 points in the final frame in order to get the deficit to 26.
Jaylen Brown led the way for the Celtics with 41 points, while Sam Hauser chipped in 30 points on ten made threes. On the evening, Hauser took 21 shots from beyond the arc, becoming the first player in NBA history to take at least 20 three-point attempts and zero two-point attempts in the same game, per Underdog NBA on X, formerly Twitter.
Toward the end of the game, Hauser was shamelessly launching from beyond the arc in an attempt to break the Celtics' franchise record for three-pointers in a game, which he ultimately ended up falling short of, much to the chagrin of the Hawks commentators calling the game.
After the contest, Hauser got 100% real on his mindset as he looked to break the record.
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“At that point it was just like, ‘Let’s get em up, see what happens, and then I got dead tired…I’m glad Joe left me in to try,” said Hauser, per Bobby Krivitsky of Forbes on X.
Overall, it was another strong game for the Celtics, who now sit at 26-15 on the season and are increasing their lead over the slumping New York Knicks for the number two seed in the Eastern Conference.
Boston's three-point heavy philosophy under head coach Joe Mazzulla has not changed a bit despite their playoff meltdown against the Knicks last year, in which the three-point shot abandoned them at the worst time and they had no fallback option.
In any case, the Celtics will next take the court on Monday evening for a road game against the Detroit Pistons.