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Court Sense: The Celtics’ Half-Season Awards ☘️

Celtics mascot Lucky the Leprechaun has had plenty to cheer this season.

Celtics mascot Lucky the Leprechaun has had plenty to cheer this season.Finn Gomez for the Boston Globe

This story first appeared in Court Sense, a biweekly Celtics newsletter from Boston Globe Sports.Click here to join the fun.

Welcome back to Court Sense: The Half-Season Awards ☘️

As we’re in the heart of awards season, sandwiched between the Golden Globes and the Oscars, the NBA season’s midway point seems as good a time as any to hand out some awards amid a surprising Celtics season.

Best win:Celtics 123, Knicks 117 (Dec. 2).There are plenty of options to pick from here, but the early-December win over the Knicks — amid a stretch of four straight games against real contenders — really showed the Celtics belonged amid the elite in the East.

Brown had 42 points, New York’s Mikal Bridges gave us all terrible flashbacks with a 3-point shooting clinic, and the Celtics nearly blew an 18-point lead but hung on to exorcise some demons from the spring’s playoff meltdown.

The Celtics were 11-9 heading to that night; they’re 16-7 since.

Worst loss:Jazz 105, Celtics 103 (Nov. 3).I was actually there for this one and got to see all the nonsense unfold with my own eyes. The ice-cold shooting, the complete inability to rebound, the slippery floor anduncalled soccer-style slide tackles— it was a magical evening at TD Garden.

There are arguments for a November loss to the Nets and last week’s defeat in Indiana, but neither was quite as goofy as that loss to Utah, which takes the cake here.

The “He Can Do That?” Trophy: Luka Garza, 3-point specialist.

I’m mostly here to apologize to Luka Garza, my sister’s favorite Celtic and a man whom I referred to as “respectfully, basically a human victory cigar in Minnesota” in a newsletter in July upon his signing with Boston.

In a later edition of Court Sense I noted that Garza had made just 31.6 percent of his 3-pointers across four NBA seasons and I “wouldn’t expect many Porzingis-style pick-and-pops.”

Well, well, well. Look how that turned out.

Garza has hit 24 of his 51 3-point attempts (47.1 percent) this season and had hit 50 percent of them at one point last week. He is comfortably the most accurate 3-point shooter in the league called “Luka” — a stat which is less impressive when you find out there’s only one other Luka in the league, but then slightly more impressive since it’s Lakers superstar Luka Doncic.

He’s also just been quite useful in general for Boston, averaging career-highs in scoring (7.6 points per game) and rebounding (4.4) in 16.5 minutes per game.

So, kudos to Luka Garza. I really should have consulted Caitlin Clarkbefore I opened my mouth.

Bloodied or otherwise, Luka Garza has been shooting sharp.

Bloodied or otherwise, Luka Garza has been shooting sharp.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff

The Height Is Just a Number Award: Payton Pritchard, paint specialist.

Of the 50 NBA players with the most isolation possessions this season, you know who the most efficient isolation player in the league is? Would you like to hazard a guess?

It’s Payton Pritchard, who is outscoring isolation superstars like Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (on a per possession basis) this season.

More impressively: As of last week, Pritchard was shooting 62.2 percent on shots that came in the paint and outside the restricted area (so, shots in the paint, but not directly underneath the basket),the highest mark in the league. The rest of the top five in that metric (minimum 70 attempts): Nikola Jokic (listed at 6-foot-11), Jonas Valanciunas (6-foot-11), Naji Marshall (6-foot-6), and Deandre Ayton (7 feet).

That’s quite the accomplishment for Pritchard, who is listed on the roster at “6-foot-1” much in the same way as I’m listed as “6 feet” on my dating profile.

The Anferno Heater of the Year: Anfernee Simons vs. Orlando (Nov. 10)

There are a few candidates for this one, including a different Simons performance in Florida and Jaylen Brown’s masterpiece in Los Angeles, but there hasn’t been a heat check quite like Simons’s eruption in Orlando in November.

Back in his hometown (where he’d played quite poorly two nights earlier), Simons went nuclear for a few minutes on the road, pouring in 23 points in just eight minutes. He went on a 17-2 run on his own at one point to drag the Celtics out of an early hole, and there really couldn’t be another winner.

The Joe Mazzulla Quote of the Half-Season: Joe Mazzulla, talking about fun.

There was never a question of who would win this one, only which quote would take the prize.

Among many (many) honorable mentions about keeping wolves as pets or complaining about illegal screens or bashing reporters for sitting in comfortable chairs, I’m partial to this response he gave on Kids Day at TD Garden when a young reporter asked Mazzulla how he balances pushing players to improve while keeping things fun.

“I think fun’s a cop-out sometimes,” Mazzulla said. “When things aren’t going well, everybody likes to say, ‘oh, well, let’s just have fun.’ It’s like, well, what does that mean?“

But that phrase can be a cop-out sometimes. So as you get older, kid, don’t use it.”

Half-Season MVP: Jaylen Brown.

No prizes for guessing this one. Brown’s ascension to real stardom in the absence of Jayson Tatum has been the story of the Celtics’ season, as his uptick in scoring (29.8 points per game without a dip in efficiency, five performances of 40-plus, and so on) has helped Boston maintain one of the league’s best offenses after a huge summer of talent drain.

He’s delivered night after night, putting his head down (and leaving some evidence behind, on occasion) and getting to the rim to score like few in the league can, earning a starting spot in the All-Star Game in the process. There have been a number of reasons for the Celtics’ unexpected success this season, but that conversation starts with the way Brown has raised his game.

Brown won’t win the league’s MVP award this season, but he’s on track for a top-three finish — something even Tatum has never accomplished — and he deserves plenty of flowers for what he’s done thus far.

Fast break

Here’s the latest on the Celtics and the most important things to know from around the NBA.

Celtics star Jayson Tatum’s workout in front of the media on Monday sent a message: He’s coming back soon

By Gary Washburn

There has never been any thought or consideration for Jayson Tatum other than a return this season, and he does nothing unintentionally. So his hourlong workout in front of the media on Monday in suburban Detroit was conducted to send a message.

He’s coming back soon.

Nothing has been confirmed, and the Celtics, understandably, have offered no injury updates on Tatum besides declaring him out for the past 42 games (entering Wednesday) because of Achilles tendon rehabilitation. And the team is giving him the time to prepare his body for a return, whether that be in March or October.