As the Celtics took a 45-point lead after Jaylen Brown drilled a 3-pointer, Monty Williams had seen sufficient. The Suns coach stood up from his seat, appeared down at his bench and pointed to his reserves. He was waving the white flag and taking his starters out of the sport.
There had been nonetheless greater than 5 minutes remaining within the third quarter.
The Celtics have had a number of spectacular performances all through their blistering begin to the season, however nothing fairly like this.
Wednesday night time’s matchup with the West-leading Suns may have been considered as a measuring stick for the Celtics, perhaps even an NBA Finals preview. It promised to be a tough problem. On the highway, with out Al Horford and nonetheless lacking Rob Williams, as All-Star guard Chris Paul returned for the Suns. Instead, the Celtics produced their most dominating effort so far and issued one more warning to the remainder of the NBA with a jarring and borderline ridiculous 125-98 victory in Phoenix.
Brown and Jayson Tatum every scored 25 factors, with the previous for some cause beginning the fourth quarter earlier than Joe Mazzulla got here to his senses. Truthfully, neither most likely even wanted to play the second half because the Celtics constructed a 27-point lead that prolonged to 36 throughout the first couple of minutes of the third quarter. They humiliated the Suns on their flooring in a efficiency harking back to the Mavericks’ Game 7 victory final postseason during which they led by as many as 46.
Source: www.bostonherald.com