CNN
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The Boston Celtics turned the primary group within the NBA this season to achieve 30 wins after beating the New Orleans Pelicans 125-114 at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday night time, largely behind a mixed 72 factors from the group’s stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Brown scored season-high 41 factors and had 12 rebounds whereas Tatum had 31 factors and 10 rebounds because the Celtics received their fourth straight recreation.
Brown particularly attacked the Pelicans from the mid vary, crediting additional muscle added within the offseason for permitting him to deal with contact with larger opponents, as he makes a concerted effort to not accept makes an attempt from deep.
“I think I can get to the rim at a good rate this year,” Brown advised reporters afterwards, per the Celtics web site. “I undoubtedly need to preserve that up.
“I don’t want to let the defense off the hook, but I feel good about a lot of the shots I took from three. Some of them went down, some of them haven’t. But I definitely still think I’m going to look to get to the basket a lot more for sure just for the remainder of the year.”
Celtics ahead Al Horford reiterated the purpose: “When (Brown) drives, I really feel like folks really feel it.
“When he’s hitting you when he’s driving, that’s real. So it’s good to see him play at that level and have his mind made up that he’s going to attack the paint.”
It was Brown’s sixth 40-point recreation of his profession, shifting him previous Sam Jones and Isaiah Thomas for the sixth-most in Celtics historical past.
Together with Tatum, the 2 wing gamers have develop into the driving pressure behind Boston’s current success.
The group reached the NBA Finals final season, finally shedding to the Golden State Warriors, and is once more probably the greatest within the league this yr.
In each scoring not less than 30 factors and 10 rebounds in the identical recreation, Brown and Tatum turned the primary Celtics gamers to realize that stat line since Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker in 2001.
Drafted a yr after each other – Brown was drafted with the No. 3 choose within the 2016 draft and Tatum was chosen with the No. 3 choose in 2017 – they’ve constructed up an understanding collectively about dissecting defenses.
“They continue to grow in front of our eyes,” Horford mentioned of the star duo after the victory. “They feed off each other, and that’s what really drives our team.”
