After one of their worst losses of the season on Wednesday night, the Celtics bounced back in a big way on Friday night. The hosts led by as many as 31 points on their way to a 112-93 blowout win against the Sacramento Kings at TD Garden.
The Celtics dominated wire-to-wire despite playing without Jaylen Brown (hamstring) in the victory. Without their All-Star, Payton Pritchard (29 points) led a balanced offensive effort for Boston as six different players scored in double figures.
The Celtics built a comfortable double-digit lead early with a 40-point first quarter and then ran away with the game before halftime with a 25-6 run, pushing their advantage to 26 points at intermission. The Kings never seriously threaten in the second half, helping Boston to cruise to the blowout win.
Neemias Queta added a double-double with 10 points and 15 rebounds in the victory while Baylor Scheierman (16 points) played well in place of Brown in a spot start. Zach LaVine had a team-high 17 points for the Kings, who have now lost seven straight games overall.
The Celtics remain in a tie for the No. 2 seed in the East with the victory at 30-18. They wrap up a four-game homestand on Sunday afternoon against the Bucks.
Here are four takeaways from the Celtics’ win on Friday night:
**Payton Pritchard carries the load with Jaylen Brown out:** The point guard seems to put together some of his biggest games when Boston is shorthanded and Friday night was no different. The veteran guard put on a show in the first half, posting 22 points and eight assists as Boston ran up a 26-point lead before intermission. Pritchard did the majority of his damage in the pick-and-roll, feasting on weaker Kings defenders to find easy looks at the rim for himself or his teammates. According to Dick Lipe, Pritchard was just the fifth player to post that stat line in the play-by-play era in a first half while also shooting 80 percent from the field.
**Boston feasts inside the 3-point line early:** The hosts broke down the Kings defense all night long but it was a parade to the paint especially in the first half due to poor pick-and-roll defense. Boston shot an absurd 85 percent from the field in the first half, going 17-of-20 from the field with the vast majority of those attempts coming at the rim. That output helped the team score 72 first half points while shooting a season-high 65.1 percent **from the field in the half.**
**The Kings need to blow it up:** Sacramento was coming off a back-to-back in Philadelphia so they had some excuse for an uninspired performance. However, this continues to look like a group that doesn’t make any sense together, something that most people assumed before the year. There are a host of veterans that are either overpaid over past their primes along with some young talent that isn’t really blossoming just yet. Moves seem imminent but it’s going to be a long road back to respectability for this group given the lack of blue chip talent on the roster.
**Neemias Queta continues to haunt his former team:** The Kings once had the best big man on the floor Friday night but they cast him aside in 2023 in order to bring aboard a washed up Javale McGee. Three years later, Queta has emerged as a capable starting center in the NBA for an East contender. He posted another double-double on Friday night in his return from an illness, outclassing Sacramento’s young frontline along the way. The Kings have misfired on some major moves over the years but letting Queta walk away is a decision that will continue to hurt as he emerges in Boston.