Celtics
All-Star wings Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum combined for 63 points and the Celtics walloped the Suns in Boston on Thursday night.
Brown scored 37 points and suggested he’s better than ever. For starters, he’s focusing more on being a playmaker this season.
“Just attacked my weaknesses,” Brown told reporters. “I feel like some of the things you said about me last year you can’t say about me this year.”
- Brown and Tatum scored 43 of the Celtics’ 65 points in the first half alone. Meanwhile, Tatum was one of the primary defenders on Suns star Kevin Durant, limiting Durant to just five points over the final three quarters.
Bulls
- In case you missed it, guard Coby White missed his first game of the season with a mild hip injury. Our Ashish Mathur has the full post here.
- The Bulls lost that game, falling at home to the Clippers on Thursday. “Losing Coby is a big loss, not only for his scoring but his presence,” center Nikola Vucevic said, via Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. “The defense has to focus on him so much. His shot-making, his creating. He’s a big part of what we do, and on top of all the other guys we’re missing, it’s tough.”
- Coach Billy Donovan said guard/forward DeMar DeRozan remains forever the professional. “The moment never overwhelms him,” Donovan told reporters. “He’s really done that throughout his entire career. It’s an incredible gift that he’s had or been able to work at over a period of time. I think the great ones lean into those moments, and he leans into having the ball and making the next best play.”
Wizards
Forward Kyle Kuzma suggested the Wizards’ defense inside the paint has left something to be desired.
“We just let guys drive to the rim. No help at the rim. We didn’t do our best tonight at [rotating],” Kuzma said after Thursday’s road loss to the Rockets, via Ava Wallace of the Washington Post. “They got in transition, they got in the paint, and we suffered for it.”
Meanwhile, interim coach Brian Keefe said the Wizards can only keep pushing forward.
“I don’t think our team has taken a step back. I think we’re in a learning process and a discovery process about our team,” he said. “I liked our fight tonight. We’ve shown good examples in the last five games that we can play high-level defense. . . . Tonight, we didn’t initiate physically to stop the ball and bring over the help, something we’ll address and look at, but each game we’ve got to grow.”
- The Wizards officially signed 7-foot center Tristan Vukcevic on Thursday, giving him a contract for the rest of the season. “A stretch big, versatile, skillful guy on the perimeter,” Keefe said. “[He] can play around the rim to give us some size and length at the rim.”
- We have more on the signing here and more out of Washington on our Wizards page.
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