Recap: Celtics Overcome Beal’s 46-Point Outburst, Beat Wizards 111-110
Creator: Michael Dwyer | Credit: AP | Copyright: Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Jayson Tatum scored 31 points, including the last points of the game. The Boston Celtics used a 6-0 run in the last 46 seconds to overcome Bradley Beal’s 46 points and beat the Washington Wizards 111-110.
Kemba Walker scored 21 points, Daniel Theis added 19 points and 8 rebounds, and Tristan Thompson chipped in with 13 rebounds. The Celtics, playing without All-Star guard Jaylen Brown, won back-to-back games for the first time since January 24-25.
For the Wizards, in addition to Beal’s outburst, Russell Westbrook scored 24 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. Davis Bertans added 20 points on 5-9 shooting from the three-point line, too.
The Celtics started the game jumping out to a 7-0 lead as Tatum scored 10 and Walker added 8 points. They led 33-28 after one despite the Wizards hitting 14 of 17 free throws.
Jeff Teague and Payton Pritchard brought some offense to the second quarter. Theis also contributed some solid play in the second (4 pts, 5 rebs), allowing the Celtics to take a 60-55 lead into halftime.
Beal continued his hot shooting in the third quarter scoring 8 points. However, Boston got a little offense from Javonte Green, Grant Williams, and Robert Williams. Theis and Walker added to this offensive effort to end the period with a 79-76 lead.
Washington took its first lead of the game at 82-81 when Westbrook hit a three-pointer. The lead changed hands a couple of times until the Wizards pushed the lead to 103-96 on two Robin Lopez free throws.
The Wizards picked up the pace and had a 110-105 lead with 46.9 seconds left. That’s when Tatum went to work. He made a short jumper off of a Theis assist then made a layup off another Theis pass to cut the lead to 110-109. Boston then forced a Beal turnover on the end-line. On the inbounds, Tatum got the ball on the left side of the floor and drove to the basket for a tough layup with 4.7 seconds left. This gave the Celtics the lead. Boston then trapped Beal in the corner and he was unable to get a clean look at his final shot that fell short.
The Celtics finally got a win in crunch time, barely scraping by against Beal and the Wizards. Their next game will come on Tuesday when they square-off against the Clippers at 7:30 PM EST on TNT.
