← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics DOMINATE as Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser DELIVER Near-Record Night
00:22:08
Boston Celtics torch Atlanta Hawks with record-chasing three-point barrage—can this shooting streak last all season? John Karalis breaks down the Celtics' dominant 132-106 victory at State Farm Arena, spotlighting Jaylen Brown’s explosive 41-point performance and Sam Hauser’s near-record 10 three-pointers, narrowly missing Marcus Smart’s team mark. The analysis covers Boston’s scorching 52-point second quarter, Hauser’s comical record chase, and how Joe Mazzulla’s coaching let the hot hand ride. Key topics include the Celtics’ efficient shot generation, Derrick White’s impact on both ends, and adjustments as Boston stays locked in through the season’s grind. Can the Celtics sustain this elite shooting and defensive focus heading into the showdown with the Detroit Pistons? Karalis also shares a behind-the-scenes look at his move to Sports Illustrated and what it means for Celtics coverage. Don’t miss the insights, stats, and signature winning culture driving Boston’s championship ...
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It's the Locked On Podcast network your team every day.
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The Boston Celtics almost set two records in their blowout win over the Atlanta Hawks, and we probably should have seen this thing coming. It's all right now on a bonus Lockdown Celtics podcast. Locked on Celtics pod, home of the winners. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast network, where it's your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics, and I talk about them every Monday through Friday. Plus bonus podcast like this one, which I am doing from the State Farm Arena In Atlanta after the Celtics blowout win. Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube and join me on a daily basis. If you're new to the show, I'm John Corral, beat writer for the Celtics on si. Yes, I've joined Sports Illustrated. Thank you to everybody at Boston Sports Journal. I'll get more into that a little bit later on, but my work is now found at the Celtics on SI page. So go check it out there. I've been covering the Celtics now for about 20 years. I've been doing this podcast for 10, written a couple of books about this team. It's a bonus podcast here where the Celtics beat the Atlanta Hawks 132, 106. Later on, I'll get into the defense, the hot shooting, and all of that stuff. Sam Houser, really funny about nearly setting a record and chasing a record, which really ended up being the funniest part of this whole game. Let's just start this. I want to start. I want to be fair to the Atlanta Hawks here because who this is, I didn't realize this coming into the game. This was their first game back from a long road trip and the Hawks didn't need anything else to kind of hold them back, right? They've been having a tough season, bunch of injuries. They traded Trey Young, all of that stuff, and then they just came off a big west coast swing. This was a Saturday night game here in Atlanta. Thursday night they were playing in Portland. So that Portland's to Atlanta flight is one of the longest flights. You only, only the Florida teams have longer flights or New Orleans is probably longer too. But that's incre. Like just tough. It's tough to do. And I want to be fair because when I say, you know, I'll gladly bring that up when the Celtics have their first game back from a long road trip. And it, it hurts them for sure. So for the Hawks, especially a team in the Hawk situation, to come in and have that be something that they had to deal with on top of playing the Boston Celtics, the second seed in the east, that's that. That made things a lot tougher for them and it showed. They didn't look great coming out. The Celtics got a big first quarter from Jalen Brown, 18 points. At one point it was 1818. Jalen Brown and the Hawks were tied with one another. So Jalen came out with a focus, which I thought was important because he, he mentioned at the team shoot around that this is the time of the year you have to lock in mentally, because mentally you start to wane around this time of year. He admitted, like this is the January doldrums. Your body starts to not feel great and so your, your mind starts to give into some of the excuses. I feel a little worn down. I feel this, this pain, this whatever, whatever. And for him to say that in the morning and then come out and play like this, I think, I think it's a kind of a response to his last couple of games. You know, that, that last game in Miami, that first half, he was just God awful. And he hasn't had a great, like his last five games. The numbers have been kind of bad for him or not as good. Right. He had that big December where he thought, you know, I should have been player of the month. And then he goes into January and things start to, he starts to struggle. The turnovers go up, the shooting goes down. The, you know, just the points go down. Like the, just the overall production takes a little bit of a step back. So it was good to see Jalen come in and have this kind of production here right away. 18 points in the first quarter came out in the second quarter. He had an extended rest in the second quarter because the Celtics second quarter was incredible. 52 points. When I say at the top, almost two records. The Celtics set a, almost set a record for their highest scoring quarter of all time, which was 54. And that was back in 1970. 52 points in the second quarter. That is outrageous to score 52 points in a quarter. But they, you know, you got hot shooting from Sam Houser, hot shooting from Anthony Simons, Baylor Shireman kicked in a couple, you know, then Jalen takes the, you know, comes in and plays five, five and a half minutes in the second quarter and drops 11 in that amount of. So he has 29 point first half. And the Celtics put up, you know, they out outscore the. The hawks by like 24 in the second quarter. And at that point, the third quarter, they got rolling. It was, it was just. They. They got up by 40, I think 40, 41. And then at the end of the game, you know, garbage time in the entire fourth quarter, for the most part, they weren't exactly going for like, they weren't playing their Christmas basketball. Sam Houser started chasing the three point record. So that was, that was, I think where things got. It was still what, a 26 point win. So, you know, big, big run in the fourth quarter to cut the game. The 26 by the Atlanta Hawks. So Jalen, Jalen was obviously very good. 14 of 30. He's the only one who didn't shoot great from 3. Everyone else a couple of 0 for ones in there, but he was 2 of 9. Everyone else was good. But Jalen got to the line 12 times and hit 11. So I think this is the type of night, you know, that he, he wanted he only one turnover. That's huge because he's been averaging over the last five games almost five and a half turnovers. So this is a nice one turnover game to kind of bring those averages back down to normal for him. Six rebounds, two assists a block. Nice game. Plus 36, second highest on the team. Neemi was a plus 39. Derrick White was a plus 36. So Jalen, 41 points in 29 and a half minutes was not bad. Nice night for him. Sam Houser, all right. Sam Houser was unconscious. Unconscious in this game. He's the other big reason why they won by this many. He gets going. He was 6 of 6 in the second quarter from three. The Celtics in the second quarter. When I talk about hot shooting, they were 11 of 15 from three in the second quarter. And I, I should mention, by the way, if you're, if you're listening to the show and you look like you hear background, I can't tell if the background background noise is coming through. There's a lot of cleanup going on here at the State Farm Arena. So if you hear any of that, then I apologize. If you don't hear any of that, then whatever my audio settings are are top notch because there's a lot of noise back here. Anyway, Hauser was fantastic. And the, the second quarter, like I said, they were 11 of 15. Hauser was 6 of 6 from 3. Simons was 3 of 4. And you know, they shot 19 of 25 overall. Like when I said like Jalen Brown came and played five 5 minutes and 34 seconds, shot 4 of 6 overall. Hauser was 6 of 6, Nene was 2 of 3, Baylor 1 of 1, Derek 2 of 3. Simons 4 of 5. The only person who took a shot and didn't score was Luca Garza. He missed one three point attempt, but he did have an assist in that quarter. So a lot of, a lot of like positive things in that quarter. But Sam gets going later on in the game. He had like, I think it was, I don't know if it was Simons who missed. Might have been Simons who missed a right wing above the break. 3 Atlanta gets the rebound. Sam Houser gets a steal, turns, spins, flicks it up goes in. I think that was his seventh three pointer. And he, it just was like, oh wow. Like, oh wow, you're having that kind of night. And he got himself up to 10. Obviously the team record is 11 for Marcus Smart. Marcus. Marcus survives. Marcus Smart is such a good defender that he somehow telepathically prevented Sam Houser from getting the 11th three pointer. Because Hauser wanted it. He knew it. So Hauser has a. I'm sure this video is online. Hauser has the post game press conference. And so right away I asked the first question, I was like, so you're at 10 three pointers and he goes, oh, here we go. He, he knew that was the first thing that was happening because he, he was just firing. So he shot. He, he took 21 three pointers, which is just an incredible number. 10 of 21, which is the most three point attempts anybody's ever taken without taking a two point shot. And he was joking after the game, he's like, why would I take any two pointers if I'm sitting at 10 three pointers which, fair enough. At that point the game, you're up 40, you're at 10 three pointers. Go for the record. Why not just go for the record? And you know, and look, Joe Missoula let him go for it, which, listen, Sam Houser has been asked to do a lot of things. He is defending really well. He is doing a lot of work out there and he's doing everything Joe Missoula is asking. Letting Sam go for a three point record out there is like the least that Joe could do. It's like a very nice kind of coaching move to say, look, we ask you to, to go out there and guard and do things you're uncomfortable with and play this physical basketball and you do it, you know, like, I mean you do your job, you do, you're supposed to do. So here you are sitting at 10 three pointers. I'm gonna let you in, I'm gonna keep you in. You've got like a couple of minutes to, to go for it. And Sam went for it. He certainly went for it and didn't get it. So he was just like, he's joking. Like, yeah, at that point I was just throwing him up there and seeing what could it. Look, some of the three pointers that he hit were very similar to the ones he was taking at the end, but he said he just got dead tired and I was joking. Like, we're going to see you on the injury report with a stiff shoulder in Detroit because of the because of all the shots you put up. So he, he's look 30 point night. Still 10 of 21 shooting from three is incredible shooting anyway. But think about he missed six in a row so he was 10 of 15 at one point from three. So I will say this about the three point shooting. The numbers look like, oh my God, they were, they were just throwing them out there. That's not how it went. I'll finish the podcast. This is a bonus podcast. It'll be a little shorter and not what am I going to talk about, a 40 point win over the Atlanta Hawks. I'll finish the podcast with the hot shooting, the three pointers they generated and the defense when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash. Season's heating up. DoorDash has a way to keep fans in their bag all the way through it. Whether you're watching the highlights, the tunnel fits. You're just your favorite player. DoorDash makes the whole season fun because every player has their bag. And with DoorDash you have one too. DoorDash keeps your necks stocked, your gear fresh, the watch party vibes absolutely on point. I know fans in Atlanta here, their team stressed them out in this game. There's going to be a lot of like drowning your sorrows and desserts. A lot of people are going to be using DoorDash. I'm sure the door dash driver is going to be busy tonight bringing them some desserts or maybe some beverages to you know for the for the late night. When you are staying up late for a late game, you suddenly need some chips, some snacks. DoorDash is built exactly for that. So from tip off to overtime, stay in your bag and order on DoorDash. Get snacks, drinks, gear, whatever you want through the season delivered right to your door. DoorDash in your bag all season long. Facial Also brought to you by FanDuel. Open up the FanDuel app every Friday from 6 to 7:30 because that's NBA happy hour on FanDuel. So Friday nights are even better right before the game tips off. Get a new way to kick off the weekend. There are new like specials. There are boosts, there are bonuses. There are surprises. The NBA Happy Hour is your official pre game. It's a limited time window every Friday from 6pm Eastern to 7:30pm Eastern. So when there's a game you it's your pre game. But if there's, you know, whatever you wanted Friday night 6 to 7:30. Open up that app to get your boost your bonuses and surprises. It's an easy way to check the weekly specials right before tip off and make a move before the window closes. So right before tip off from 6 to 7:30, check out what's dropping on the NBA Happy Hour. When you sign in on FanDuel, you're going to get an alert to set your limit, set your budget, whatever your disposable income is, whatever you would normally be spending on a night out, that's your budget. Set that, stay within that gamble responsibly. Have some fun. Hopefully you're winning. But if you hit a cold streak, FanDuel will stop you and you can pick it up again later when you get some more money. So check it out. NBA Happy hour only on FanDuel, the official sportsbook partner of the NBA. Thank you for making lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Do appreciate you making this the number one Celtics podcast in the world on the number one sports podcast network in the world. So thank you so much for doing that. If you want to become an everydayer or you are an everydayer joining me every Monday through Friday, join the everydayer club. You get access to our Discord server free audio, free podcast audio which is compatible with all of your, you know, Apple, Spotify, all the major podcasting apps. So that's five bucks a month at lockdown celtics.supercast.com or 50 bucks for the year if you want to subscribe and pay up front. Like I said, ad free audio Discord server access merchandise drops. All that stuff is on the everyday or club. So go check that out. So the hot shooting, The Celtics shot 22 of 52, which is 40 over 42% from three. Now really subtract the six three pointers that that Sam Houser like was blatantly chasing the record because that does, that doesn't really count towards this. The Celtics generated there was 22 of 48. Let's say they were generating good shots. I don't think they overdid it when it came to three pointers. I thought this was they did a really good job creating the shots, the three point looks. They took advantage of Atlanta's defense, which was a lot of two on the ball, a lot of helping. They were really overreacting I think. Might have been the fatigue, might have been just, you know, bad execution. Whatever it was. I mean Sam, Sam was left alone. Sam was, you know, on a heater all night long and he was consistently finding himself open from three. It wasn't until Sam was, you know, clearly trying to break a record that they stuck with him and didn't let him get going. So that was, you know, I thought, I thought the offense, the, the shot generation was really good. And obviously they got to the free throw line. A couple of bad things. The, the turnovers. Too many turnovers at 17 for 19 points. They give up too many offensive rebounds. Not really going to go say anything more about that other than to acknowledge that it happened and not gloss over it because they won. But the defense was good. Like, again, the Hawks, in a tough situation, they shot 37. They might have shot 37%, no matter what, but because of the turnovers and offensive rebounds, The Hawks got 120, 102, 102 field goal attempts, which is a lot. And that's the type of, you know, you lose that margin by 11, you're going to find yourself, generally speaking, in a much tighter game. So the defense stepped up for sure. Did a good job. The rebounding, what could have been better? But the Celtics still found their way to 44 defensive rebounds because there were so many missed shots. So shout out to their defense. I think the defense did a good job individually. Like, Derrick White had a quiet game with seven points, but, you know, only took four shots. He didn't need to shoot. He had 12 assists, five rebounds, three steals for him, which, you know, the blocks are always a big thing. And he had one of those as well, the three steals. He's really the, the, the, the chase down back tap steel for, for Derek is becoming almost as effective a weapon as the block shot. Like, he's doing that a lot this year. He's, he's just. It was a, it was a nice, it was actually a nice night for him. Plus 36. You know, sometimes you don't need to. You just don't need to score and like that. This was one of those nights. So he, he did a good job. Cato was okay. I, I didn't think he was all that great, but he was. He was okay. 14 points, five of seven. Couple of tough. Like, he only had one turnover. There are a couple of tough fumbles that kind of cost him a couple of shots, but he, he was. He was okay. Shireman was okay, too, starting in place of Peyton Pritchard, who didn't play with an ankle thing. So Scheireman was 3 of 6 from 3. 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals for him. So that's nice. He's gotten a couple of starts and he's been okay. Simon's cooking off the bench. 14 points, 50% shooting across the board, couple of rebounds. So he had a nice night. Yeah, that's, that's it. That really. There's not much more to talk about here on a Saturday night here in Atlanta. I think about 20 minutes of this podcast talking about this game. This is, this is about enough. Jaylen Brown was awesome. Sam Houser was on fire. The Celtics couldn't miss that second quarter was, you know, an ungodly, like, wow performance. And the Hawks just never had a chance. They probably were going to lose this game anyway because of the schedule, but they never, the Celtics made sure they never had a chance. Nice focused game. After the last few, which have been kind of iffy, this was a nice, focused, go out there, do your job, win the game. Good job. Right? Did your job. Not much more to talk about. Monday is going to be fun because it's the Pistons, it's MLK Day, it's 8 o', clock, it's the 1 versus the 2. That's going to be a lot of fun. So I want to end the podcast by saying just thank you to Greg Bard at Boston Sports Journal. I. I've spent five years, the last five years of this podcast introducing myself as a beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I have left. I am taking over the coverage on the Celtics on SI page for Sports Illustrated. So I'm excited about that move, happy to be in charge of all of their Celtics coverage on SI and very happy to kind of take that in a different direction. I know that SI has had, you know, a kind of a weird transition over the years. I feel like this is part of a strategy to kind of rebuild the brand. I grew up, I grew up on Sports Illustrated. I grew up on the writing in Sports Illustrated. It's probably part of what shaped my personality and why I love sports and why I think about sports the way I do and why and why I write the way I do. So there, there have been so many great writers there. Now all of my stuff's going to be online on the, on SI page. But to help, I hope, bring some, you know, bring that respect back to Sports Illustrated and the, the online brand is, is going to be a real kind of focus for me. I'm excited to do it. My first piece is published today, so if you want to, you know, you know, obviously if you follow me on social media, you'll see my links, but I'm excited to move forward there at Boston Sports Journal. And congratulations to Jack Simone, who's taking my spot over at Boston Sports Journal. He's going to Crush it there. It's going to be a lot of fun. So media moves here on the Boston Celtics beat, but very happy to be joining si. It's going to be a lot of fun. So the podcast. I'm obviously staying with the podcast. Nothing changes here, so just enhancing everything. So very happy to be here at State Farm arena for this. I know it's kind of like a weird camera angle. You just see my profile a lot as I look at my computer. But they're cleaning up down there and I can kind of show you a little bit of the cleanup. The rims are down, all of that stuff. So everything, everything's being put away. So that's it. That's the podcast. I do appreciate you being with me every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcasts like this when they play on Fridays and Saturdays, so make sure you're subscribed. Watch the show on YouTube. Get into the comments section now. I would love it if you shared the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here in the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day.
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