
Boston Celtics dominate Brooklyn Nets as Nikola Vucevic delivers his best game in green and Jaylen Brown shakes off a rocky start to fuel a 37-point blowout. Can this level of bench production and hot shooting become the new norm as the Celtics prepare for a brutal schedule stretch? John Karalis of Celtics on SI recaps a record-setting offensive performance at TD Garden, spotlighting Vucevic’s clutch first-quarter scoring and Brown’s all-around explosion after a slow opening. The breakdown highlights Neemias Queta's defensive tone-setting, Hugo Gonzalez’s impact, and Peyton Pritchard’s bounce-back night. Key topics include Boston’s shooting splits, Joe Mazzulla's approach to managing the rotation amid a challenging road trip, and looming questions about rest versus health with back-to-backs against the 76ers and Bucks. Will the Celtics’ depth and resilience sustain them through the grind?
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John Corrales
Foreign podcast Network your team every day.
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John Corrales
now on the Lockdown Celtics Podcast, Nicola Vucovich plays his best game as a Celtic and of the season and Jaylen Brown shakes off a rough first quarter to fuel a blowout locked on Celtics PO Home of the winners.
Nick Gangstead
Hey there.
John Corrales
Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics Podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network where it's your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them Monday through Friday Bonus podcasts like right now on a Friday night when they play on a Friday or a Saturday. So make sure you're subscribed. Watch the show on YouTube and get into the comment section if you're watching the show on YouTube. I love this vantage point. Here I am on center court of the TD Garden after the Boston Celtics blow the doors off the Brooklyn Nets. I'm John Corrales, a beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports Illustrated's Celtics on si. I've been doing this job a version of it for about 20 years, this podcast for 10. So today's show is brought to you by Five Hour Energy. You can have your cake and drink it too with 5 hour energy. Birthday cake flavor is back. It tastes like vanilla, it tastes like cake and it's got a caffeinated kick with no Sugar, it's party time. Order now at five hour energy.com or on Amazon. Celtics get well. It wasn't always going to be a blowout, but halfway through the, through the third quarter, they turned it into one. Later on, I'll get into individual performances like Nikia Nia Kada. Thank you. For some reason I got Nikais Duncan and the Mish k combined there for no reason. But hey, here we go. We're off to a rock and start. I'm starting this podcast off just like Jalen Brown started the first quarter. We'll get into Jalen's first quarter and all of that in the next section. But let's just start with flow of the game and Nicola Vucevic. Long time listeners, you regular listeners, you everydayers, you know that I love talking about clutch moments that don't happen in the fourth quarter. And I think you can qualify Vuch's 10 first quarter points as maybe a clutch 10 points in the first quarter because Jalen did start slow. The Celtics were going back and forth with Brooklyn. They built a lead, Brooklyn took it back and it was just a back and forth kind of flow. Vuch was coming off a couple of bad games and you needed, you needed somebody to come in and kind of carry things and he was the guy. He comes in 10 first quarter points, hitting kind of everything, hitting threes, getting into the post, passing out of the post. There's a real important kind of stretch there early in the game. Obviously a lot of basketball left after that and so a lot of things could have happened, but getting those minutes early, coming in and, and being the guy off the bench to kind of steady things and help the Celtics take a lead at the end of the first quarter, that, that was important. And if he didn't, you might have seen the Celtics kind of react a little bit of a different way. The butterfly effect here could have been very different if Vuch didn't come in and have that 10 point first quarter. It really, I'm not trying to overstate it, right. I'm not because the Celtics did end up winning by 37. But I'm really impressed by the Celtics when they don't take excuses. And this team under Missoula don't. They don't tend to take a lot of excuses. But it's right there for them. They had a long road trip to come out of the All Star break. They've been, you know, they've been on the road for a little while. They haven't been home for a bit. Even with The All Star break, you know, you're traveling, you're going to a different, you know, whatever vacation you're going on, it's still traveling. You're still not home. It's still different. It's. It just throws your whole routine off a little bit coming back off this road trip there. It's right there when the nets are making their move and if Vuch doesn't come in. And let's say, you know, the Celtics ended up the first quarter up three, but let's say they were down five, six, seven, whatever it was, you know, if that second quarter doesn't go well, it very easy for this team to just say, eh, ain't got it today and we're just move on. But they didn't. And I think Vuch, you know, the energy stayed up, the energy stayed high. And because he comes in and scores those points, it just gives the Celtics a little something extra. It gives them that. That just keep. Lets him keep some of that momentum and moves them forward. I like Vuch out of the post. I think it's going to be a nice option once the Celtics kind of settle in and Vuch kind of understands what his role really is. And, and you know, the, the Celtics kind of figure out exactly how to use him. And, and when things aren't going well, they. Now they look. They shot off the charts here, but kind of going back to the Denver game and a little, a little bit of this analysis, running him into the post is a great way to just settle things down. Stop a run, cut behind him and he can make passes. The. My. My favorite play of this game might have been, well, let's see. Two of my favorite plays. One was the Jaylen Brown poke free. The. The. The steel track it down on the right wing and hit Nemi underneath. Partly because it was great hustle play, partly because Derrick White met Jalen. I don't think this showed up on any of the broadcasts, but met Jalen at half court and just did like a little kind of like exaggerated running motion, just kind of like busting his chops. I thought that was fun. But back to my point, my other favorite play, maybe my. My actual favorite play because I love a good cut. Vuch in the post. Josh Minot, who had a decent game, by the way. Josh Minot, you know, with big poster dunk on Hugo. But maybe that was revenge for this play where Ugo cuts down the middle with Vuch in the post and gets the dunk off of the cut. That's just a great play. And listen, if I'm, I've probably said this two, three times already at this point, but if I'm a role player, if I'm like Ugo Gonzalez or somebody and Vouch has the ball, if you're not cutting, you just don't want to score points. He's going to find you if you're cutting and Ugo cut and he got found and it was an easy two hand dunk. Those are the types of plays where you, you can use Vuch as a hub to run your offense when things aren't going great. And yeah, you can argue that they weren't kind of going great in the first quarter. So it was good to see Vuch come in and have that game. Jalen shook off that first quarter struggle and came in and had a great rest of the game. We'll talk about that and the heart, the hot shooting when we come back. Today's show is brought to you by Door Dash. 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John Corrales
Learn more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan, Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval. Thanks for making Locked on Celtics your first listen. Every day. You're in every day are here with me Monday through Friday. Why not join the everydayer club for five bucks a month or 50 bucks for the year, you get ad free audio that's available on every major podcasting platform. You get access to our Discord server for in game chats during the Celtics and NBA games and a whole lot more. Get check it out@lockdown celtics.supercast.com lockdownceltics.supercast.com I'll drop that in the show notes for you as well. So Jalen Brown, both Vuch and Jalen both scored 28 points. Jalen's first quarter was, I don't want to say it was forgettable, but, you know, he started off 0 for 4 from the foul line, 1 of 3 from 3. Afterwards he said we started slow and it was part partly my fault. So he admitted it. But he did have, you know, three rebounds for assists, a steal in that first quarter. He was still a plus three because he was on the floor for the entire quarter. And the Celtics finished it up 3. So. But after that is where he did his damage, obviously just two points. So he scored 26 the rest of the way. He was, he was big at the end of the second quarter where he scored five points to, to, to kind of help the Celtics get into halftime. What was the halftime score? Whatever it was, they, they increased their lead. I want to say it was like seven or eight at halftime. And then in the third quarter, he comes out and the Celtics go on a big run to start the quarter and he start to get a tiny bit of separation there. So Jalen comes out just with a little bit more focus, a little bit more just aggressiveness and did a, just a great job. He was, he was Perfect in the second quarter. And then in the third quarter he had 14 points as part of this Celtics run. The. The Celtics, I gotta call up what this run was. It was 30, 37 to 35 to 7. So at the end of the second quarter, midway through the second quarter, the Celtics were, they were up 6 and then they went on a 27 to 7 run to go up 26 and then a 35 to 7 run to basically put this game away in the, in the third, fourth quarter, fourth beginning of the fourth quarter where they extended the run an 8, 0 start to the fourth quarter. And Jalen was just fantastic. Oh, I'm, I'm sure my mic is now picking up some of the background noise if you're hearing the background noise. That's the, the crew cleaning up here after the game because they're the. I love it when the floor stays here because the game is on Sunday. They got another game on Sunday against Philly and. But yes, you're going to hear some background noise probably. Anyway. Jalen did a little bit of everything after that. He finished the game, like I said, with 28 points. He had nine assists, seven rebounds, two steals a block. Just two turnovers. And after the 0 for 4 start from three, he finished 6 of 6 after that. So settle down, get yourself back together and, you know, finish this game off strong. He shot 9 of 12, man. Everybody shot well except for, I guess you can say Derrick White. You want to count Delano Banton at the end. But Derek shot 4 of 9, 4 of 8 from 3. So he shot fine. The one, the one two pointer he missed brings him to 44%. The Celtics shot 66.7%. They were 0.2% off their all time high. So this is the second best field goal percentage that the Celtics have ever had. They were 22 of 34 from 3. 64.7%. There were 22 of 27 from the line, 81 and a half percent. So basically 67, 65 and 80. 81 and a half. It's pretty good splits for the Celtics. You're just not going to beat. You're not going to beat any NBA team when you shoot, when they're just consistently shooting in that mid 60 range. The Celtics were at like 60% for the whole game. Jalen shout, everybody. Everybody shot well from 3:10. Celtics took a three pointer. Eight of them made a three pointer. The only guy who didn't in the rotation was Ugo, who was over 2. And then John Tanji was 0 for 1. That 1 miss, that 1 miss cost the Celtics the record field goal percentage. Just gonna say John Tanji. No, congratulations to him. He had his first NBA points, couple of free throws there. So nice to see him get out there and score a couple of points. That was really cool to see Baylor Scheiren give him a fist pump on the bench knowing that he's getting his first points. So Jalen. But Jalen was just, you know, a monster game for him. Him and Vuch, you know, getting Vuch comfortable. Jalen kind of like working through, getting the passes going, getting, getting the team going. After a slow start, recognizing that he had the slow start, it was nice again like Jalen, Jalen starting slow. He very easily, very easily could have just been like, whatever, I ain't got it either. So I, I do think it's impressive when the Celtics don't give in to these excuses. I don't think people understand how hard it is to come in and like, yeah, they make a lot of money. Yeah, there's, it's, it's basketball, but the travel and the schedule. Third game in four nights and now you're playing. You know, you have one day off and so what's this? Three and four, four and six and you know, you got another back to back coming up. This is a brutal stretch. It's very easy to just say, ah, we're going to try and, and just, we're not going to be aggressive. We're just going to try to shoot our way out of it. Now maybe tonight, no matter how they play, they would have shot their way out of it and it would have been fine. But you know, it's, it's not easy to come out there and give everything and have like 100% energy all the time. By the way, this, this back, back to back. That's coming up. What a rough, what a rough sk. Like that, that game in Milwaukee. I think, I think a lot of guys are going to be sitting that game out. Celtics play an 8 o' clock game on Sunday night against Philly and then have to turn around and play a what a 6, 6:30 game against Milwaukee on Monday. Let me, let me just call this up real quick because it's, the schedule is, is insane for Boston. Let's see here. Sunday night, Philly, 8 o' clock and then it's a 7:30 game for us, but it's a 6:30pm game start central. That's just, that's a tough turnaround. Yeah. I don't know what to expect in that Milwaukee game. That's going to be. I think Sean Grandy said it best because he put that out like the Celtics or whatever, few of them there are, whatever, whatever he said are playing like Milwaukee has some injuries and stuff like that. Giannis is probably not gonna play. So he kind of basically said without saying, a bunch of guys aren't gonna like Jalen Brown may not play in that game. Derrick White may play, may not play in that game. I don't know who's gonna play in that game. But it, the, it won't be a full Celtics roster on that turnaround. That's just, and this is, you know what this is, this is the, this is the in season tournament. Just back. You know, the way the schedule you got to backfill a lot of these. You can't, you can't have this. Like, this is just part of the. I don't understand what the league is trying. Like, what's the payoff? Honestly, what's the payoff of that in season tournament? That this is what you want? You want like you, you can't have everything, right? Oh, we want the in season tournament. We also want everybody to play all the time and no one to be tired and no one to be hurt. And it's just, what do you want? All right. Anyway, that's a side note, side rant. Let's come back. We'll talk about some of the other individual performances, like Keita, Ugo. I loved Ugo's game. We'll talk about that when we come back. Today's show is brought to you by Five Hour Energy. 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So your number one pick may not be my number one pick. I've had a few number one picks. I keep going back to grape because who doesn't like just a nice solid grape flavor, A concord grape similar to grape juice or those grape candies, smooth, almost syrup like fruit profile. Classic prime purple candy style finish. That's always going to be my number one. A good grape taste. I used to love grape soda. I like grape juice. So of course I'm gonna go with my grape Five Hour Energy. Find your new favorite flavor of Five Hour Energy shots available at Five Hour Energy. That's the number five. Ourenergy.com or on Amazon. Today's show is also brought to you By Game Time. You want to get that Game Time app on your phone so you can get yourself to an NBA game. Because this atmosphere here, being here, if you've never been here, it's electric. When the Celtics are going on that 35 to seven run, that's an electric atmosphere. You got to be in the building for that. Game Time is going to help you do that. You open up the app. The price that you see is the price that you're going to pay. No surprise fees at checkout. They have the view from your seats. You can open up your phone and see what your view is going to be. If you like it, boom, you got it. If you like the view from a certain section, get a zone deal and they will pick the seats for you. You can save a few extra bucks that way. So download that Game Time app. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to the NBA or any other sporting event. I've used Game Time a lot. I've gone to WNBA games. I've gone to baseball games. I've gone to a lot of events using the Game Time app. So I do not qualify to use the code locked on for $20 off my first purchase because my first purchase was a long time ago. But your first purchase with the code locked on L, O C K E D locked on your first purchase, you'll get $20 off with that code at Game Time. So if you want to download the app, I would recommend doing that gametime app. Or if you want to do it online, it's gametime. Co gametime.co appreciate you being here with me for this bonus podcast. Again, the show's Monday through Friday. Bonus podcasts like this on the weekends. Also bonus podcasts throughout the week. Just here or there. There's going to be the occasional bonus podcast. I really think that the bonus can be mailbag stuff. I think the mini mailbag might have worked well. I think the people seem to respond to that. So if you like that format, I could do mini, mini Mailbag podcast for you throughout the week so we can get a lot more of these questions in and out. So you can do that johncarellis.com mailbag to get those questions in. All right, let's go through some of these other individual performances before we wrap up the show. The Mishkeda, I thought, started off the game, set the tone defensively. He had, what was it, a. A steal, Two steals in a block, a big monster block that sent the ball into like the fifth row over here. He had the one steal early on and then he had another pick six where he just got it and finished the ball. Finished with a dunk over here. Yeah. Jason Tatum kind of laughing and smiling about it on the sideline. That was a nice. I mean, if you're watching on YouTube, that just happened, like, right behind me over here. So that was a nice play from. From Neemi, who did just another. This is what you expect now from. From Keita. Big, big defensive numbers, the occasional, you know, offensive burst, the ability to finish around the rim and all that stuff. I think he does a great job. I really do appreciate his ability now to finish around the rim. A little soft touch. He's not afraid to just lay it in. I think one of the things early on he may have, especially beginning of last year, he may have just had this feeling of, hey, I'm a big dude, I should just be dunking everything. But he doesn't have that explosive kind of. He needs to load up to be explosive as a leaper. And he can get up there, no doubt. He can get up and get up high and block a shot, no doubt. But he needs to load up to do it. He's not just going to catch, land, and go back up off of his toes like somebody like Aaron Gordon or something like that. That's not his game. It's not his style. He doesn't have that ability yet. Maybe he will someday, but he doesn't right now. And now he's developed like, hey, I'm just going to lay this in. There was an alley oop that he got. He was a little off balance. He didn't have time to gather and explode. He just kind of laid it in. He's just crafty, a little, you know, nice touch around the rim. And he's. He'll finish with a left hand on the right side, right hand. You know, he'll. He'll do that kind of like whatever he needs to do to just get that ball in. Up over the rim. So really, like, really like where Keda is right now as a player again, that the beginning of his game here was. Was really nice. Let's see. Let's go. Derek White. Three of three to start the game. One of five. After that, this. This was turning into maybe another, like, Derek had the hot hand, and I just want to see more of the Celtics kind of finding that hot hand and. And go. I'm gonna have to ask Joe about it maybe before the Philly game. I didn't think tonight after the game was the appropriate time because there were other questions to be asked, but maybe before the Philly game, I'll ask him what that balance is between you want to run your read and react offense and I understand that, but Derek had it going, very clearly had it going, right? The three in the, in the pocket and all that stuff. That's when Derek has it going like that. You definitely want to feed that now. I'm not going to make a big deal of it now because The Celtics shot 60% and 64% and 67% overall. So I'm not gonna like. It worked. It was fine. But I still think the Celtics need to be a little bit more, I don't know, willing to find the hot hand and just, just like a couple of play calls, you can still run a couple of play calls, you can still run your read and react offense, but just start it as, hey, we're going to run this. You know, why not run a, I don't know, a Spain pick and roll for Derek? Why? Let's, let's run that and see if it results in another three. Let's just run some of the things that you run, but run it for the guy that's feeling it. So. But whatever, it's fine. Derek had had a nice game. I just wanted to kind of make that, that comment again. I thought Lugo Gonzalez was really good in this game. The, the numbers don't jump off the page like eight points, but he had two blocked shots. He was a plus. Was he plus 16? He just, he didn't shoot well and that's the knock on him. But I thought he played really great. I thought the read that he made like the, the cut for the basket, the, the dunk was good, that the defense was really, really good. A lot of the defense, like the stuff that doesn't show up on the, the stat sheet. He just, the way he defended, the way he prevented certain guys from getting the ball, just. I really like the way he played. Decent game from Sam Houser. Thirteen points on 5 of 9, shooting 2 of 6 from 3. Of all the guys who, who shot below 50%, Sam Houser is one of them. But he got into the, you know, inside the three point line. He had a nice finish, a nice layup, which was. Was great. A solid game from him. Solid game from Baylor Shireman who hit a couple of three pointers. It was funny to see somebody tweet out, like every time Baylor hits a three, you think of me. I appreciate that because I've been saying like, if he has that low, that low launch angle, that shot's not going in, but if he's got that nice high release, then that's probably going in and that, that's what those two shots were. But another solid game. Six rebounds, six assists, I'm sorry, three rebounds. So moving the ball well and all of that. So solid game from him. Peyton Pritchard was great. They needed, they needed was a combined 50 points from Vuch and Pritchard. They needed. Both of those guys were like, Vuch was 9 of 13, Peyton was 9 of 12. Peyton was 4 or 5 from 3, 5 assists. Those guys, after a couple of rough shooting nights, good to see them have, you know, put the ball in the basket and kind of have a nice bounce back. The only other guy, Jordan Walsh kind of struggled a little bit being a minus two was, you know, you're, you're in a 37 point win, you're minus two. A couple of turnovers kind of, you know, in the early going helped keep the game close before the, the, the Celtics made their big run. So just, you know, I'm, I'm kind of curious to see where Jordan settles in all of this because he can still be an elite defender, an elite offensive rebounder. So you just want to see him be a little bit more stable with the ball. The, the one turnover, he was trying to find Jalen in the corner over here. He tried to whip a pass, like a big kind of loop around pass. It's not the worst thing in the world. Went out of bounds. It's going to happen, but you know, just, I don't think that was the right read necessarily. He probably could have finished at the rim. But even so, you got to make, you got to make that pass. If you're going to throw that pass, you got to make it. That's it really for, for this game. Nice win. 148, 111, 37 point win. Not much else to say there. So I'm going to wrap it up. Celtics play Sunday night against the Sixers right here. I will be back here. I don't know where I'll be podcasting from because they'll probably be ripping up the floor. Probably back upstairs at the sports museum. But either way, I will be here. So make sure you're subscribed. You can watch the show on YouTube, of course, and then I would love it if you share the podcast. That'd be very helpful. Share the podcast, tell everybody that they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast network. It's your team every day.
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John Corrales
Learn more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan, Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval. Oh joy. Another day, another buzz delayed.
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John Corrales
You don't mind running late. What's your deal?
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John Corrales
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Host: John Karalis
Date: February 28, 2026
Game: Celtics 148, Nets 111 (37-point win)
Location: TD Garden, Boston
In this electric bonus episode, John Karalis breaks down the Boston Celtics' total domination over the Brooklyn Nets at TD Garden. The episode highlights standout performances, especially Nikola Vucevic’s best showing as a Celtic and Jaylen Brown’s powerful resurgence after a rough first quarter. Karalis offers insightful analysis on how key individual efforts and Boston’s blistering shooting night fueled the blowout, all while capturing the postgame energy directly from center court.
On Vucevic’s Bench Production:
“Vuch comes in, 10 first quarter points... hitting threes, getting into the post, passing out of the post... Those are the types of plays where you can use Vuch as a hub to run your offense when things aren’t going great.” — John Karalis (02:55, 05:55)
On Team Resilience:
“I’m really impressed by the Celtics when they don’t take excuses... it’s right there, when the Nets are making their move.” — John Karalis (03:44)
On Jaylen Brown’s Mindset:
“Jaylen starting slow, he very easily could have just been like, whatever, I ain’t got it either. So I do think it’s impressive when the Celtics don’t give in to these excuses.” — John Karalis (17:10)
On Red-Hot Shooting Night:
“The Celtics shot 66.7%. They were 0.2% off their all-time high... You’re just not going to beat any NBA team when they’re just consistently shooting in that mid 60 range.” — John Karalis (14:05)
On NBA Scheduling:
“What’s the payoff honestly, what’s the payoff of that in-season tournament? You want everything. You can’t have everything.” — John Karalis (21:41)
Broadcasting from center court, John Karalis delivers upbeat, analytical, and humorous commentary, celebrating a dominant Celtics win while pointing out the nuances that made it possible. The episode is packed with detailed breakdowns—equal parts stats, stories, and strategy—making it a comprehensive listen (or read) for anyone wanting to relive a classic Celtics blowout or understand the undercurrents that drive elite team play.
Karalis encourages feedback, sharing the pod, and joining the ad-free Discord community for even more Celtics banter and insights.
“Share the podcast, tell everybody that they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast network. It’s your team every day.” (30:46)