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Boston Celtics secure their 50th win with Jayson Tatum returning to top form—could this be the spark for a championship run? Tatum dazzles with a dominant 32-5-5 line, showing off his signature swagger and confidence, while Payton Pritchard and Neemias Queta step up as key contributors against the Charlotte Hornets. The Celtics’ playoff positioning solidifies, and massive milestones are reached, including Tatum surpassing 14,000 career points.
John Karalis of Celtics On SI breaks down how Joe Mazzulla’s adjustments—like starting Jordan Walsh for his defensive prowess—and the emergence of Boston’s role players set the stage for postseason success. Key storylines include resting stars for the playoff push, Queta's intriguing development as a potential stretch big, and what clinching a top-four seed means for the Eastern Conference race. Don’t miss this energetic look at the Boston Celtics’ winning formula as the playoffs loom.
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Now I'm the locked on Celtics podcast Jason Tatum looks like Jason Tatum again and the
Celtics get their 50th win of the season.
Lock most Celtics pot on but a winner.
Baby.
Hey, welcome back to the show.
I'm John Corralis Boston Celtics get a nice, very nice win over the Charlotte Horn.
It's 114 99 and they just looked great all throughout.
Later on in the show, we'll get to their 50 wins and the playoffs that they clinched.
We'll get to Jordan Walsh's defense later on in the second segment.
We'll get to Peyton Pritchard Namiish-Katis some of the other guys who made big contributions.
We've got to start though with Jason Tatum who was amazing.
Very first possession that he got.
He drives goes up for the dunk, gets the big swing hang dry light.
It was the most explosive play we've seen from him this season and right away I was like,
well, that was more explosive than we've seen him.
This bodes well and then from there it was just everything working for him.
This was the most Jason Tatum that we've seen Jason Tatum and not just him scoring, attacking,
rebounding, passing all of that stuff.
It was the Jason Tatum confidence.
It was the Jason Tatum swagger.
A lot of times in these games, in these first 10 games that we've seen him play, he's
looked, he's had the little celebrations, he's done a little three point thing and then
just kind of, those little things, but he's also looked gassed, winded, he's looked frustrated
at times.
He's looked not quite, when we say not quite himself, he hasn't looked like his usual kind
of, you know, Jason Tatum, I'm the best player in the world, Jason Tatum, kind of feel.
In this game, he was, he had that look in his eye, he felt better, he looked better.
It was, it was really incredible to watch.
He had 32 points, five rebounds, five assists in the game and he just, right away was on
it, nine points in the first quarter, he had 11 in the second quarter.
He had seven in the third and in the fourth quarter, he comes in after the early run.
So I'll get to Jordan Walsh's defense, but the Celtics and Jordan Walsh, we're able
to hold off Lamello Ball and really bother him and look, Charlotte was on the back-to-back,
so a little bit of that going on too, but the defense on Lamello was really good until
the fourth quarter where Lamello got going, right?
He scores 12 points in the fourth quarter, but Tatum comes in and just slams the door
and finishes things off.
You also get contributions from Pritchard, who I'll get to, but to see Tatum attack and
hit shots and make plays, just read the floor, he's reading the floor really, really well.
When they blitzed, he draws a double team, he invites the double team and gets rid of it.
When they're in drop, he attacks it, when they're at the level, he just reads the floor
and knows what to do, he understands what plays to make.
So this was just a great Tatum performance, and ultimately, the beauty of it is he did
it in less than 31 minutes because he didn't have to come back in in the fourth quarter,
and he was questionable with the Achilles management, however they listed it, right Achilles
repair management or whatever.
I don't expect him to play in the back to back against Atlanta, I think would be kind
of pushing it a little bit, like there's no reason to go and push it that far.
The Celtics not only, I'm recording this, there's a minute 35 to go in the OKC New
York game, and it's an 11 point game.
So that game is essentially over, and the Celtics will have a two and a half game lead on New
York, and they still have one game to play.
There's a lot of pad there.
It's going to be very difficult.
I think there'll be seven games left for the Knicks, and to make up two and a half games
in those seven is very tough.
So the Celtics will have a very strong hold on that second seed, and if they beat the
Knicks on April 9th, by then it might even be, it might even be figured out, and the
Celtics might have that in hand, but there's no real need to play Tatum.
In fact, no Jalen Brown in this game with the left Achilles tendon ice.
I've talked about that.
I don't think that's a big deal.
I think they're just giving him a little bit of rest.
Joe Muzzle will keep saying it's day to day.
He's on the trip.
If it was serious, I don't know if he would have been on the trip, he would have stayed
back and gotten the treatments, and no need to go up and down in a plane and pressurized
cabins, which can mess with the inflammation.
They can encourage a little bit of inflammation.
So I think he would have just sat at home if it was a big deal.
We may see Jalen play against Atlanta and Tatum sit.
Tatum loves playing in Charlotte.
He went to Duke, it's not that far from Charlotte, so I think, let Tatum play in the place
he loves.
Let Jalen play in the place he loves, because he's home in Atlanta, and you just move on,
then everybody goes to Miami and has some fun.
So we may not see Tatum in Atlanta, but to see him in this game, it was incredible.
14,000 points now, 14,000 career points for Tatum.
So congratulations to him for that.
He is now the ninth player to reach 14,000 points in Boston, Celtics history.
Jalen Brown will soon become the tenth.
He just crossed 13,000.
So next year, Jalen should easily reach 14,000.
So I'm reading this from Dick Light from NBC Sports Boston.
Tatum, youngest player in franchise history, to reach the 14,000 point milestone.
He did it in, let's say, a few months younger than Paul Pierce.
He did it in the second fewest games, 596, Larry Burr did it in 582, and that's just incredible.
It's just incredible bit of history there for Tatum.
So congratulations to Tatum on that.
Just incredibly, just shocked.
What do you want me to say about what Jason Tatum has been?
He came back, was it three weeks ago?
Three weeks in a day or two?
Come on.
There's no way, no way.
If you had told me, okay, this is the day Tatum's coming back, and by the end of the month,
he's going to be playing 35, 36 minutes, and he'll have a 35 and five game in him.
I'd be like, you're crazy.
And I'm the guy that said that he would come back exactly when he came back.
I'd been saying early March for months, since like the summer I was saying, Tatum could
come back early March, I knew he was going to come back in early March.
And even that, even I, who was the eternal Tatum optimist in his return from this injury,
I never, ever would have thought, 35 and five, three weeks after coming back, playing
35, 36 minutes, three weeks after coming back.
This is the most amazing return from injury that I've ever seen, in basketball.
There may be some in other sports I don't, I can't, I honestly have not, there are plenty
of sports I just don't even pay attention to anymore.
So for Tatum to come back this soon, and also this well changes so much, because my whole
thing was he'll come back, he'll take some time to ramp up, he'll have some real rough
games.
I was expecting a lot of these games to be rough, you know, like nine points, four rebounds,
two of 14 shooting, 15 minutes, types of games, just as he got back to his wind and all
of that stuff, the recovery, the stuff that he did that none of us saw, all of that getting
to this point, I'm amazed, shocked, blown away, this is shocking.
Now here we are, a couple of weeks away from the playoffs, a few weeks away from the playoffs,
April 18th or 19th, so we're basically three weeks away from the playoffs.
And I don't even know what to expect from Tatum, I keep saying, yeah, you know, he's not
going to be himself, he's going to be, you know, a little less than what he is, or, or
is he, or is he, I mean, I can't imagine that he's going to play 34, I mean, I've like
40, something minutes of game, but who might have said he won't anymore, I don't know what's
happening anymore, whatever my thoughts are for the Celtics, I've just got to take, like,
take it to five steps past whatever the most optimistic thing that I can come up with.
It's ridiculous.
The stuff that I would sit there over at the beginning of the season, be like, well, you're
just an incredible optimist, people, people said I think they can win 50 games, like that's
just impossible with this team, it was everything would have to go right, and everything's gone
right.
Everything's gone right, Jason Tatum is at the head of that list right now, everything
has gone right for a guy coming off in Achilles, everything has gone right, and here he is,
32, 5 and 5, get out of here, man, that's incredible.
Payton Pritchard, incredible in this game, whatever, Payton Pritchard, when Jalen Brown
sits, take the over, so you got to set the over at 25 for him, we'll get back, when I come
back, we'll get into Payton Pritchard's game.
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Thank you for making a lockdown Celtics your first listen every day and making it the
number one Celtics podcast on the number one sports podcasting network.
Thank you for joining me every Monday through Friday plus bonus podcasts throughout the
week and on the weekends when they play on Friday night Saturday nights, I'll drop an extra
podcast there.
I am John Corralis, I cover the Celtics for Celtics on SI, I've been covering the Celtics
for 20 years now, I've been doing this podcast for 10, I've also written a couple of books
about this team.
I might be writing another one about this Boston Celtics team the way they're going.
Peyton Pritchard was awesome in this game.
28.6 rebounds, 6 assists, a steal.
He was 6 of 6 from the line.
Another offensive rebound.
He gets the 28 points but only two three pointers made.
That's just, that's not the typical Peyton Pritchard that we've known coming into this
year but that's this year's Peyton Pritchard.
He was 7 of 9 in the paint non-restricted area plus a layup in the restricted area so 8 of
10 overall in the paint but he just loves and by the way that layup, a cut, a 45 degree
cut, Jason Tatum was on one elbow.
It's like wherever the angle is, you just kind of match that angle from the opposite side.
That's where you cut from.
If a guy's cutting from straight from the top, you cut from the baseline.
If a guy's cutting baseline, if a guy's dribbling baseline, you cut from the top.
If a guy's one at one angle, you cut from the other angle, a 45 degree angle.
Anyway, that's where Tatum found a Peyton Pritchard.
Pritchard gets in there for the layup but more than that, Pritchard just keeps finding
his way into the paint and hitting that stop, turn around, fade.
It's a classic shot for him now.
He really is, if you ever watch, I love nature videos.
That's why part of why I like Joe Mazzulli keeps making these nature references.
I'm like, oh, I'm fully on board with this.
You ever watch a nature video of a honey badger just wandering into a pride of lions
and messing with the lions?
That's Peyton Pritchard.
He is the honey badger.
It's just a lions with their swatting him around and he's like, no, I'm going to bite
you on the nose.
I'm going to bite you on the paw.
You can't mess with me.
I'm Peyton Pritchard.
I don't care that you're seven feet in the pain.
I don't care that you're six, eight in the paint.
It doesn't matter how big I am compared to you.
I own this spot.
That's Peyton Pritchard.
He went in there a time and time and time again.
He is one of the most efficient players in the NBA in that spot.
It's ridiculous that he, a small guard, is in there doing it but he doesn't care.
He doesn't care.
I know people want to give honey badger nickname to somebody else, whatever, but I just might
settle on that.
He just, whatever you want to call him, the fact that he's in there doing that, just incredible.
Namesh Keda also, 17 points, eight of 13 shooting, eight rebounds, another three offensive
rebounds for him and assist the steal, a block.
Keda has exceeded everything.
I started this season, obviously, I started this season.
People ask me, you think this might be the worst front court in the NBA, like maybe even
Brad Stevens, excuse me, even Brad Stevens, I've referenced this a million times in this
podcast before the season started.
Couldn't even muster up the, hey, no, I think positive this and positive that about these
guys.
Yeah, people are going to look at their numbers and say, this isn't the best and they're
just going to have to prove everybody wrong.
He couldn't even say, I believe that they'll do X, Y and C. No, he said, ah, doesn't look
like that.
Oh, that great on paper.
It's up to them to prove people wrong.
Namesh Keda comes in, proves everybody wrong.
Hand up.
I'll be the first person to tell you when I'm, when I miss on a player and I would rather
underrate somebody than overrate somebody.
So I don't, and I listen, I say that as the guy that is way out on a limb on Ugo Gonzalez,
who once again, didn't look particularly great, ah, 13 minutes was a minus 12, had moments
but was also like, you know, but he's still rookie.
Yeah, I'm way out there on Ugo, but generally speaking, I tend to underate players before
I overrate them.
And Keda had so many questions and he's just, he just continues to answer them and he's
answered them throughout the season.
He still has issues for sure.
He still needs to, sometimes he doesn't catch the ball at that cleanly.
He definitely needs to improve his base.
He's definitely a little still too gangly.
He's still a little too off balance.
He needs to get like, just squats like crazy and improve that base and just do like those
footfires and, you know, just improve his balance, get, either get into it like a karate
dojo or something like that and, and just learn balance and prove that base.
And then if somebody, if we want to pitch in, I'll pitch in five bucks, we can try to
get him in with the Kima Lajuan for a couple of weeks over the summer.
And I like, I like the idea of him with, with dream because dream has those long arms and
he just understand he was like thin and understands how to use his body.
I think, I think I, Keda can have some like translatable physical kind of ways to use
dreams moves.
Somebody can get him in with the Kima Lajuan, just learn one move in one counter to
that move.
And all bets are off with Keda next year.
Keda's in his prime.
These are the two, three, four years where he, this is where he's going to maximize himself.
He's got one more year under contract.
Then he can go off and find a loop coordinate deal somewhere, either with Boston or somewhere
else, but this is his time.
He was, he was great in this game.
The floater, the finishing around the rim, his timing on the pick and roll, he, he, he's
in the right spots.
He reads the guards better than ever.
A couple of spots where he's like rolling to the rim and he sees the guards actually going
a different route and he stops and kind of relocates, comes up and catches the ball in the
middle of the paint.
He's got that little floater.
This is just a, does a great job that, that dunk was a little kind of nuts and he took
a three, let me just say this about Keda with the three pointer.
I see him take three pointers before games like they have him warming up and he gets out
there and he shoots a few.
I see him at the practice facility shooting them.
It doesn't look that bad.
It doesn't look bad at all.
He actually has like decent form.
So I'm not going to rule out, Keda, hitting a three before the season is over.
I'm not going to rule out the three being a part of his game at some point.
I'm not going to say that it is going to be a part of his game, but it's, I've seen
guys who shoot threes more regularly.
Like way worse than what Keda is putting up there.
His shot looks decent.
So I don't know.
Maybe there's a three, maybe there's a stretch big somewhere in Keda.
At some point, listen man, I can't, I told you, I'm riding high on this team right now.
I can't find any faults right now.
So yeah, it may sound silly to suggest that Keda could be a stretch big.
Why not?
I just said, I got to take the most optimistic view of a guy on this team with Joe Mizzou
and the player development and all the great vibes and just take it, take it too far.
Because taking it too far pans out with these guys.
So yeah, stretch big to me, Ish Keda.
We'll come back.
We'll talk about everybody else, Jordan's D and we'll get into the 50 wins and the
playoffs that they clinched and the nicks just lost.
So we'll get into all of that when I come back to wrap up the show today shows brought
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All right.
Let's Jordan Walsh started this game.
So again, no, Jalen Brown, no Derek White.
So Jordan Walsh got the start.
And he got the start because his length was very useful against Lamello ball.
Lamello had a stretch in the fourth quarter where he was effective.
But other than that, just not a typical Lamello ball game, he was kind of off.
And that was that was a nice kind of adjustment by Joe Mizzula.
So good job by Jordan Walsh.
Who was one for seven and 0 for four from three.
And that's something that he just needs to be better at.
He needs to hit shots.
It's not sorry to be unfair.
Did a great job defensively be still need to hit some shots, right?
So that's going to be the the over for sure you just can't do that.
But defensively really good job, really great hustle, great, great energy.
Jordan Walsh, I've said, he's an NBA player.
He's he's very good defender.
I mean, he can be an elite defender.
He still has a room to grow.
I can see him growing into an elite defender in the league.
He has the potential to be a 3 and D type of guy.
Maybe more, but he has the potential to be a real strong guy that maybe I feel like he has
a future.
So I'll just leave it at that great job by Jordan Walsh and a great job by Joe Mizzula to get
him into that position with the guys that were out Baylor Shireman, 14 points, three
of seven from three, four of 11 overall, did a great job, hit a couple of big shots.
The one shot that he hit, huge one in the fourth quarter, Jalen, Jason Tatum got doubled.
Just whipped like a lefty bounce pass to Baylor and Baylor just nice fake and then steps
into a wide open three and drills it.
That's exactly the thing because Jalen and Jason are both going to be.
Blitz, the teams are not going to let those guys as much as they can, not going to let
those guys beat them in the playoffs.
The guys in the floor are going to have to step up.
Baylor Shireman is going to have to be one of those guys and he did that job in this
one against Charlotte.
Ron Harper Jr.
Got to shout out Ron Harper Jr.
He sprained his ankle.
He did come back and wasn't really as effective.
But before that was three of three came in like non-Tatum minutes, came in four Tatum,
did a good, good job.
Grabbing rebounds, going length of the floor, just taking all the way, shooting with confidence.
There's one play where he got the ball, I'm going to say it was after a steal, it was kicked
up, he was on the left side and he just Tatum coming down.
The right slot is, I forget who it was in the right corner and it's very easy for somebody
in Ron Harper Jr.'s position on the team, currently still a two way player, although I do
expect him to get upgraded on the last day of the season.
But a guy in his spot could say, well here comes Jason, I'm just going to give it to Jason.
But Harper has incredible confidence.
He took that shot, he drilled that shot, loved it.
So again it was a shame that he sprained his ankle, that he had one defensive play on
Kobe White, we're just a nice little jab, kind of dig him and then come back, get your
arms up and get into the passing lane, Kobe White took the bait, tried to make that pass.
Ron Harper bold got the steal, led to a wide open bail or three that he missed but still
was a high quality shot in transition, the exact kind of shot that you want to get, it
was transition threes or great, he just missed it, but great defensive play by Ron Harper
Jr.
He was really, really good.
That's it, nothing notable from Sam Houser, nothing notable from Hugo or Luca, they
chatted like some moments, but that's that's that, Celtic get their 50th win.
So let's just finish this off by saying, the Celtics now have 50 wins.
They have, they're two wins up on the, the next three, three games in the lost column.
So with 74, there's eight games to play for the Celtics.
There are seven games to play, right, the, the nicks are 60, 75, so there's seven games
left for them to make up three games in the lost column.
So they need to, they need the Celtics to lose at least three games, one of them to them
probably.
They need, they need the Celtics to lose three games so they would have to go five and
three the rest of the way for the, and the nicks would have to go seven and no.
So every loss that the nicks have after that, the Celtics would need to go like four and
four.
So this is very difficult, it's very, very difficult.
The nicks, this is basically this game, it hasn't clinched anything yet, but it, it's
essentially, it's this close for the Celtics to be, they're going to be the 2C.
I feel extraordinarily confident, they're going to be the 2C.
Detroit's going to be the one, Boston's going to be the two, the nicks are probably going
to be the three, although there's only one game up on Cleveland in the floor and the
four, but those are going to be your three, four.
And then five through, five through 10 is still just kind of anybody's game.
Five six seven is kind of all up for grabs, eight nine ten is going to be all up for grabs.
So Toronto, Atlanta, Philly could be five six seven, any combination of them, Orlando, Miami,
Charlotte, eight nine ten, that's going to be any combination of those guys.
So that's kind of the playoff situation.
The Celtics getting to 50 wins, just amazing, I just, like I said before, I don't know,
not what I expected, not what a lot of people expected.
I thought people, there are a lot of people who said, and people who will be in the YouTube
comments.
He'll say, I said 50 wins, like, yeah, and I thought you were being an overly optimistic
Celtics like superfan, and which is your right?
You can sit there and be like, sure, sure.
But I was trying to be reasonable and I thought, 45, I think that was good, 45 winning season,
all things considered, but everything's going right.
So there are 50 win team, 50 plus win team, I've said this before, I had a conversation
with Joe Bazzullo before the season started, and he told me he laid it all out for me.
This is why I think we're going to win 50 games, and I said to him, we'll see.
And this is why I am in my home office doing a podcast and Joe's out there who just won
his 265th game when you combine regular season and playoffs.
So that's why he does his job, and this is why I do this job.
So, congratulations to him.
The Celtics are going to be a top four seed.
They didn't just clinch a playoff birth.
They clinched a top four seed, so they can't be any worse than fourth.
If they lose all of the rest of their games, they will still get home court in the first
round of the playoffs.
Well, you get it, you get it.
It's just another incredible accomplishment for these guys.
This is a testament to the culture that they've built, it's a testament to Joe Mazzullo,
it's a testament to the players, the coaching staff, Brad Stevens, ownership, all of it.
And you throw in the added, you know, get under the tax, you know, craziness that they're
able to accomplish, it's kind of nuts that they're able to do all it is.
The season isn't over yet, but it's been the most charmed season that I can remember.
I mean, even with the Isaiah Thomas seasons, it wasn't even that everything went right
in those seasons.
It's just that Isaiah Thomas was unbelievable and he bailed the Celtics out.
This isn't even bailing the, no one's bailing the Celtics out.
This is just everything has gone perfectly.
What has missed this season, the Chris Boucher signing, that's it.
Everything else has worked.
The Josh Maynott thing worked, he started a bunch of games, he won them games.
You know what I mean?
Everybody else here, Jordan Walsh has been great and then gets a bunch of DMPs, comes
in, plays great, right, even if it's just defensively, he plays great.
Tatum obviously coming back, we've talked about all that, Cata, I talked about all that
and saying Sam Hauser has been basically Sam Hauser, Peyton Pritchard started slow but
what has turned into, you know, the six-man role or post-trade deadline has been amazing.
Shireman, Ron Harper, Ugo, Luca, I mean, everybody has hit Brad Stevens, has hit on everything.
How has he not played the lottery at this point?
Why is he not also a Powerball winner?
Keep them out of the casinos or if you see Brad Stevens at a Crap's table, go to that
Crap's table because he's going to win, just make the same bets he makes.
All right, that's it for the show, great win for the Celtics over the Hornets.
Now back to back, Celtics at Hawks, I will be back after that game, again I don't expect
Tatum but I do suspect Jalen will play but we'll see, we'll see.
But now with the next losing plenty of pad, now you have an advantage, you can rest people.
This is such a huge thing.
Subscribe to the show, subscribe to the YouTube page, I drop bonus podcasts throughout the
week now so if you're not subscribed, you might miss them so they'll show up.
Make sure you're subscribed.
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Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics

Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics

Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
