The Boston Celtics’ dynamic duo of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum helped serve up an ice-cold dish of revenge Friday night, handily defeating the Denver Nuggets at TD Garden 108-95.
Leading wire-to-wire, Boston quickly jumped out in front with the first two buckets of the first quarter and never looked back, intent on paying back the Mile-High City’s franchise in dramatic fashion.
The Celtics were led by Tatum’s 26-point, 7 board and 5 assist night and Brown’s 21 points and 7 rebounds.
We led the West’s No. 2 seed from start to finish tonight, all while getting another stellar all-around effort out of Jayson Tatum. https://t.co/qzgwQtCZmq
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 7, 2019
The Jay Team were complimented by 19 points from former UConn standout Kemba Walker, while the team managed to hold the Nuggets to just 5-of-30 from beyond the arc while hitting 37.1 % of their own shots from deep and 53.7 % overall.
Denver’s Nikola Jokic had an exceptional night, logging 30 points and 10 boards, but only teammate Jamal Murray managed to break the double-digit scoring mark for Denver with 10 on the night.
Despite the season-high from the Nuggets’ All-NBA center, Boston threatened to blow the game open midway through the second frame before Denver cut the lead down to 53-45 at the half.
Kemba on Tatum getting blitzed by defenders: "When you’re killing it the way he’s killing it, he just has to expect teams to blitz him and just make it more tough on him. That’s something he has to expect as we go further along."
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) December 7, 2019
The Nuggets couldn’t build on that momentum coming into the third, and a series of floaters by swingman Tatum pushed the lead as high as 23 in the game’s final frame before Denver cut it to a respectable range against Boston’s deep rotation.
The Celtics’ defensive whirlwind, Marcus Smart, made a return to action after sitting a game to recover from illness and previously injured obliques re-aggravated in Sunday’s win against the New York Knicks.
The Flower Mound native scored 9 points over 28 minutes as he eased his way back into his game, helping the Celtics win their third game in a row and their sixth of the last ten.
Boston next faces the 5-16 Cleveland Cavaliers at home on Monday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 pm ET.