Payton Pritchard turned Monday night into a personal showcase, and the Celtics turned a competitive first half into a runaway at TD Garden. Boston buried Chicago 134-99, with the bench handling most of the fourth quarter once the outcome was long decided.
The Bulls arrived in Boston already scuffling, and that rough start to the season only got worse. Once Pritchard caught fire in the third quarter, the game tilted hard in Boston’s favor and never came back.
Jayson Tatum did plenty of damage too, even if it didn’t always look clean in real time. The jumper was slow to come around, but his downhill pressure kept the Bulls on their heels.
When he decided to attack, he got all the way to the rim, absorbed contact, earned trips to the line, and finished with force. He also helped as a passer, including some encouraging pick-and-roll work with Mitchell Robinson.
It wasn’t spotless. Tatum had some shaky rebounding moments, a few defensive miscues, and a couple bad fouls mixed in.
Still, he was the best player on the floor. He finished with 23 points, seven rebounds, and six assists while shooting 7-of-17 overall and 2-of-5 from 3-point range.
Derrick White had the opposite kind of night: productive enough in the box score, but too messy with the ball. He had four turnovers against the Detroit Pistons on Opening Day, one against the New York Knicks, and then six more against Chicago, with five coming before halftime.
White finished with five points, six rebounds, four assists, and three steals, but the turnovers stood out. Boston’s ball-handling as a whole was loose, and White simply had the most giveaways.
Paul George was next in line.
Pritchard, though, stole the spotlight. After struggling to get anything going against the Knicks, he responded with the kind of night that reminded everyone why he was viewed as Boston’s second-best scoring option heading into the season. Chicago had no answer for him, whether he was working off the ball or creating for himself.
By the third quarter, he had taken command of the game. Then he went even further in the fourth, putting up 19 points in the final frame alone while hitting 7-of-8 from the field and a perfect 5-of-5 from deep. He closed with 28 points, one rebound, four assists, and two steals on 10-of-16 shooting and 7-of-10 from beyond the arc.
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