
Boston Celtics stomp Portland Trail Blazers with a dominant first quarter, but questions linger after a cold, sloppy finish at TD Garden. Did Jaylen Brown, Payton Pritchard, and Derrick White do enough to quiet doubters as the Celtics cruised on early momentum but struggled with turnovers and free throw disparities the rest of the way? Celtics on SI's John Karalis spotlights Amari Williams’ rapid development and the intriguing mix of Celtics’ big men. The episode also celebrates Jrue Holiday and Rob Williams’ return to Boston, recaps key defensive highlights, and previews critical trade deadline decisions as the Celtics look to fine-tune their roster for a deep playoff push. Can Boston maintain their dominance, or will the recent sloppy play expose bigger issues down the stretch?
Loading summary
A
It's the Locked on podcast network your team every day. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces.
B
Switch to T Mobile and save up.
A
To 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cellular stores.
C
Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits. Plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.
B
New year same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time only.
C
Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.
A
And for delivery now in the Locked on Celtics podcast it was sloppy and cold outside TD Garden and it was sloppy and cold inside TD Garden and the Celtics made 12 minutes of work last for 48. Hey, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast network. Where does your team every day your team's the Boston Celtics. I talk about them Monday through Friday, bonus podcasts when they play on weekends. So make sure you're subscribed wherever podcast exists. It's on YouTube as well. You can watch the show there if you're new to the show. I'm John Corrales. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports illustrated Celtics on SI page. I've been covering the team for about 20 years doing this podcast for 10. I've also written a couple of books about the team. Coming up on today's show, Drew Holiday, Rob Williams were back. Talked to them. That's coming up later on. We'll save that for last. Probably the best for last. We'll get into individual performances. Amari Williams, a lot of Amari Williams lately. Peyton Pritchard, Derrick White, all those guys. Jalen Brown coming up. Want to start with the beginning, which is where the Celtics won this game. The first 12 minutes of this game was the best 12 minutes of the game where the Celtics outscored the Blazers 32 to ease 1111 points in the first quarter for the Blazers ultimately too big a hole to climb out of. And by the way, it is climb out of, not dig out of. You don't dig out of the holes. Unless you're the Simpsons, in which case you say dig up stupid. But no, you climb out of holes. And the the Blazers couldn't climb out of holes this hole because the Celtics put up 32 on two pointers. They were 4 of 13 from 3. That meant they were 10 of 13 from 2. And the two pointers were what really did the job for the Celtics in this one. Jalen Brown in the first quarter was. Was great. Seven points on three of five shooting. It was a balance like Peyton Pritchard. Peyton Pritchard was great. We'll talk about all the individual stuff later on. Derrick White kind of snapped out of his funk. Balance scoring Amari Ugo, Anthony, like everybody got together, everybody hit shots. The Celtics just dominated that first quarter. And that's, that's. Sometimes that's enough against a Blazers team that didn't have Denny Abdia, which really hurt them, obviously. No, Scoot Henderson, that, that really. The Abdia injury, illness, whatever it was, maybe I think it was his back. He's. That. That. That killed him really, because they. They just couldn't get enough offense. They couldn't get organized enough. And when you, when you go one of 12 from three in the. In the first quarter, you're. You're not going to recover from that. In fact, the blazers one of 12 is 8%. They shot 32% in quarters two through four. So that is, I guess, recovering, but not really because you shot 32%. Blazers couldn't hit a shot. The Celtics couldn't really hit much after the first quarter either. So both teams kind of sucked after the first quarter. You know, if we're being honest here, this wasn't the most thrilling win of the world. In the world. This is not. This is not a game. We. We're not going to look back on this game and be like, wow, this was a turning point. This was anything big. It was, hey, that was nice that Drew came back. It was nice that Rob was back and played in his first game against the Celtics. But other than that great first quarter, kind of crappy the rest of the way, where the Celtics just let it roll, let it ride, and hey, that's how it's gonna go. But the. The. The. Both teams file too much. Both teams turn the ball over a ton. This was not the most entertaining game in the world. Like I said at the top, cold and sloppy outside, cold and sloppy inside. They did the. The weather a night they. They did a nice impression of the weather because they couldn't really hit anything after the first quarter. In fact, let me. Let me just call this up real quick because in quarters two, three and four, the Celtics were. Hold on. The Celtics were 22 of 66, 39% the the Blazers actually recovered and shot 49%, but that didn't really do much because they only got 57 shots because they turned the ball over so much. Both teams hit nine, nine three pointers the rest of the way after, after the first quarter. So neither team was able to pull away. Neither team was able to like the Blazers weren't able to get hot from three and close the gap. Both teams were not hit nine three pointers. The Blazers went to the line 28 times, the Celtics 17. Somehow in, in all of this time, Jeremy Grant went to the line. 10 of. He was 10 of 15 from the line. Like all of Denny obvious free throws went to Jeremy Grant who suddenly just gets a ton of free throws. 15 free throws for Jeremy Grant, 18 for the Celtics. So that, that's a little rough. But overall, 18 turnovers for the Blazers, 17 for this. There was no, there was nothing that separated these teams after the, after the first quarter. The Celtics just separated themselves and that was it. Amari Williams was a big reason why the Celtics were able to kind of keep, first of all, build a little bit of a lead and keep the lead. Let's get into Amari Williams. Let's get into individual performances when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by TurboTax. It is tax season and you don't want to let taxes take over your life. It's just easier than ever with TurboTax. Just hand things off and move on with your day. That's great. Moving on with your day and not worrying about your taxes because they can be done for you by a trusted local expert, start to finish. That means no stress. That means no guesswork. And I know taxes are full of stress and guesswork. Don't spend hours trying to figure out your forms when you can meet with a local TurboTax expert in person and connect online if you'd like to do that instead. They handle everything you got W2s or are you self employed? They work with you to get every deduction. You can upload your documents and then just go do what you gotta do, run your errands. Someone else has that. You have the app on your phone. You can get updates or right through that. TurboTax app, super time saver. And it gives you peace of mind because you know an expert has got your back. For a limited time. You can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 all in. If a TurboTax expert didn't file for you last year, just file by February 28th take taxes off your plate and get back to your life. Visit turbotax.com local to book your appointments today.
B
New Year Same extra value meals at McDonald's now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5 for a limited time only.
C
Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.
A
Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen Every day. The NBA trade deadline is just about here and we want to give you a free month of our new Everyday Club to help you get ready. If you need a group chat to keep up with the chaos, join ours. The Everyday Club gets you access to a group chat on Discord just for Celtics fans, plus national chats where you can hang out with fans from across the league. You also get ad free versions of the show. If you sign up on the trade deadline on February 5th, you can use the code deadline, get your first month free tap on the link in the show notes or go to lockdown celtics.supercast.com for more. All right, let's go. That first segment was short because that was it. That was the story of the game. 1/4 course 2, 3 and 4 were just so many fouls, so many fouls, so many turnovers, so much sloppy play that it was, that was the story of the game. Amari Williams is another story of the game because he, he got a few minutes the other night to what game was that that he closed out Brooklyn and five minutes. He was huge. Then he gets a start in Chicago and if you missed it on Celtics on si, I did a whole scouting. I put about four and a half minutes of game tape together of his minutes where he did something and broke it down from like a scouting perspective. And I thought it he was in the Chicago game kind of really overthinking things. He was, he ended up being like passive, just hands down, not sure of himself. And it really impacted his play. He, he had a play where the ball was thrown. Derek White threw a long pass to Jalen and Amari kind of clearly thought that Jalen was going to finish the play. And he kind of hung back where if he, if he made it, if he just ran hard, he could have gotten a pass. And so I looked at that Chicago game and I was like, okay, Amari's got to learn how to play hard and he's got to, he's got to stop like overthinking and at least whatever you do, do it with some force, with some Conviction and it'll come to you, no problem. And then in the third quarter of that game, he started to come out, come around, and it felt like, okay, there's some coaching there, he's following direction, he's picking things up pretty quickly. Fast forward to this game against Portland and immediately I saw the stuff, like building on the stuff from that third quarter in Chicago. And so I thought that Amare is, I think, picking things up quickly. I think he's a, he's a fast study. He's. He's giving the impression of, okay, I screwed up. What did I screw up? Okay, I'll work on it, I'll fix it. That's all you can ask for for a rookie, a guy in a two way contract. You tell him what you've done wrong, you say, okay, you've done ABCDEFG wrong. And he goes, okay, I'm gonna fix all these. And you come into the third quarter of that game and he's addressed abcd. And then you come into this game and ABCD have gotten better and then EFG have been addressed. You see him say like it's just the force, the, the confidence, the energy. One of the terms I used on SI was springy. I wanted him to be kind of like knees bent, hands out, locked and loaded defensively and able to move and not just standing up straight and his arms down and letting passes go by where he should have higher hands. Amare has the potential to be part of this rotation next season. He, Whatever the Celtics do at the deadline, presuming they are going to try to find themselves a big of some sort, you can, you can have a very good rotation of big that they trade for Nimius Keda and Amari Williams, whatever that ends up being. Mimi as the starter, the new guy as the backup, Amari as the third. Maybe Amari raises his game to become the backup. Maybe there's the new guy becomes the starter. Who knows what the rotation will be. I don't think Luca Garza is going to stick around necessarily because his skill set as an offensive rebounder is important this year. I don't know that it's going to be as important next year because theoretical center to be traded for sometime in the next either two weeks or few months. That guy I assume is going to be somewhat of a rebounder and Jason Tatum's coming back and he's the Celtics best rebounder. And I think all of the rebounding will get better and the need to make up for the lack of rebounding with an Offensive rebounder is gonna, it's gonna kind of go away. So I'm not 100% sold on Luca Garza coming back. Maybe he does, maybe he does. I don't know. Brad Stevens can throw us a curveball at any point. So maybe Luca does come back. But my guess is that a big comes in, Neemi is either the starter or the backup, and Amari can fill in some gaps. And what we saw in, in this Portland game from Amari was a lot of matching up with Rob because Amari's an athletic center who can get up and can move and can, I think eventually switch and be decent in those moments. So I know his passing is, is the big thing and eventually the Celtics will maximize that. But I thought the stuff that he did in this game, the screening, the defense, the rim protection, rebound, like all of that was so much better than what we saw just even in that previous game against Chicago. So I don't know where they'll ultimately land this season with Amari. He probably. I think this is going to be good experience for him that he can take back to Maine and build on. One of the problems I think with Maine is that it may not be challenging enough for Amari and he's probably going to be caught in a little bit of this middle ground where the NBA is a little too challenging for him and the Celtics are trying to win. And I don't know that in a healthy lineup where some illness isn't going through the team. And you know, Luca was out and Chris Boucher was out, not that he's ever going to play again. And Neemi was limited because they're all sick. So Amari's getting his opportunity in a fully healthy situation. I don't know that Amari is quite where they need him to be to get these minutes. Plus he's on a two way contract and you know, I haven't looked at the overall minutes for him right now, the games played, but I can call this up as I'm talking, but at some point he's going to be up against a, A, a limit because it's. He, he is a two way player. So he has played in. Well, only this is his 11th game. So he, he has actually, he's got plenty of games actually. So how many the Celtics have played? They're at 45, so yeah. Okay, so he's, he's actually not going to be up against the minutes limit. He won't be able to play in the playoffs though. So that's an important distinction. He won't be able to play in the playoffs unless he's upgraded. So regardless, he needs to take this to Maine and build on it. I just hope that the competition in Maine is enough of a challenge that he's going to be able to build and get better. Maybe, maybe the Celtics need to keep him in Boston more. I guess now that he's not up against any sort of games limit because you get 50 games as a two way player. He's got get him in there, get him, make him active and let him play a little bit more. Give him, give him some, some opportunities in, you know, up, up against some of these athletic guys. Let's see if he can go in there and help. Maybe that means minimizing Luca Garza some, but I'd rather that like no offense to Luca Garza, but if I don't think he's a long term part of this team and he's more of a stopgap player, then it makes more sense to have Amare in there and see if you can get him some, some minutes, some time and build him up a little bit. So that's, that's my thought. Not, not that. Look, Luca Garza's impact on a team has been evident and if it's not with the Celtics, I think he's earned at least a shot to stick in the NBA. So, so I think his time in Boston has been successful enough where he'll get that opportunity. But Amari Williams becomes the priority because I think he's a long, a longer term piece of this puzzle. All right, let's get into individual performances from this game. Peyton Pritchard, Derrick White, Jalen Brown, all of that plus the return of Drew and Rob. That's all coming up when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Game Time. There's nothing like being in an NBA arena. I was there and even though the game was a little sloppy and gross, still people are having a lot of fun in a game like that. It's important to open up the Game Time app when there's weather or something that keeps people from going because I bet there were a ton of great deals on the gametime app where you could have opened it up. If you're in Boston around the, like anytime you're around, just open it up and see. There's probably some great deals. And when you open up the great. The, the gametime app, you have a few real advantages. The seat view. So when you open it up, you. It'll show you this is what your view is going to be from the seat. It's important because if you've never been to the arena or or you're not familiar with the sections, you know what you're going to see this the price that you see is the price that you're going to pay. And if you're not sure about a deal, check out their zone deals where you pick a section, Game Time picks the seats and you save out. You save some money there. It's great with last minute options. It's quick, intuitive, stress free. So take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with Game time. Download the GameTime app, create an account. Use the code Locked on for for $20 off your first purchase. That's locked on L O C K A E D on locked on for $20 off Download the Gametime app today and remember it's Gametime Co Gametime Co if you're going to use it on the web.
B
New year Same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time only.
C
Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.
A
And for delivery thank you for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen. Every day, the number one Celtics podcast in the world and the number one sports podcasting network on the world. Check out all of our great shows. Locked on, Blazers locked on, whatever team like the Celtics have played are playing locked on. NBA if you're a football fan, if you're a Patriots fan. Locked on, Patriots, lockdown, Seahawks. We got the whole league covered, all sports covered. So check it out. All the major sports covered, plus college, plus women's basketball. So go check that out wherever, whatever podcast you want, search for it. It's everywhere. All right, let's get back to the discussion here. Individually, I thought Jaylen Brown started off great. Just started off like wonderfully and then just kind of kept a nice little steady pace. 20 points, 8 of 17 shooting great. 1 of 3 from 3, 3 of 5 from the line. 8 rebounds for assists, 4 steals, which is great. A nice, just a nice solid night for Jalen Brown. That's good. Peyton Pritchard was big, not only with 23 points, but in an eight point win he was plus 23, which is huge. 8 of 16 shooting, 5 of 11. He had a few assists, four rebounds. The one concern was he hurt his finger. He has a left pinky finger injury. He wouldn't say what it was. He's been dealing with it since the west coast trip. So about a Month on that left Pinky. It's some sort of. I don't think it's a jammed finger. I think there's probably something more going on with it. But he had like a little rap on it and then he got caught up somehow and then came back. He left quickly, came back with a much bigger wrap on it. So something's up with that left Pinky. But it's the, it's the finger that you can probably live with being hurt. Back when I was playing, you would just tape it to the ring finger. You just tape those together and whatever. Like you would just deal with it. You'd have a little like claw situation going on. They probably don't do that anymore. I haven't seen the, the two hand tape, the two finger tape together thing in a long time. I used to have that all the time. Peyton said this after the game. If, if you've ever played basketball for an extended period of time, finger injuries are the most common thing. Just always being bent and jammed and who always. There's always some sort of finger injury going on. So I know that well. But he came back in the game. He seems to be okay. He's dealing with it. I don't know the extent of that injury, but that, that's what he was dealing with. Derek White. A nice game from Derrick White, except for. And they added a turnover. Since I looked at the box score at TD Garden, which I was at TD Garden. I'm not doing the podcast from TD Garden because it. First of all, the weather was terrible. Shout out to everybody who got to that game. I decided to just get out of there as soon as possible before everything froze over so I could get home in one piece. But all the people who made it to the game. Good for you. The, the nine turnovers for Derrick White. His career high was six. This is not a career. That's not a career high you want to smash. But Derek, even so. Even so, he still ended up a positive. So a few of those turnovers were not great, to be honest. Like that he had some real stinkers. There are a couple were like, okay, a miscommunication. He thought somebody was going to be in a spot and he threw it out of bounds. Ah, happens. He threw an entry pass to Amari Williams who wasn't really quite ready to catch that. So that goes down as, as Derek's turnover. A couple of other ones. You're like, like at the end of the game, a jump ball or he, he, he gets the steal, he grabs the ball. They call A jump ball. And I think Portland wins the jump. So that goes down, I think is a turnover. So there were a few that you're like, okay, we're going to live with that. That's fine. But he had at least four that I can remember that you're like, what are you doing, Derek White? What? What are you doing? Very uncharacteristic for Garrick, but he shot 7 to 14, which is really nice to see because he's been struggling from the field. Two or four from three. He didn't go crazy with the three point volume. Other things, two offensive rebounds, four assists, a couple of steals. And the, the killer, the night night shot with 24 seconds to go when the Celtics, like, I think the Celtics did a good job of answering. Like they went up by 23 and then the lead went down to 15 and it always, it just kind of hovered between 10 and 15 and they would screw up and Portland would cut it down to like 10, maybe nine. And the Celtics would hit a three. How's it would hit a three or somebody would do something. You're like, okay, it's 12, it's back up to 15. They had a brief moment where it's back up to 20, but they did a decent job of hitting some of the timely shots, not all of the shots and building it back up to a 25 point lead, but the timely ones where it's like, oh, this can get back. Okay. Nope, nope. Here's a couple of shots and the Celtics are back up and it feels comfortable. But it wasn't until like the very end where in the last couple of minutes, all of a sudden the Blazers started hitting a couple of shots and you're like, wait a second, this is not. This is not good. This is getting. This is getting dicey. And the Blazers were never able to make like that final push. And Derek made a couple of plays. He hit that shot to kind of put it away. But that, that. This wasn't exactly Boston's best clutch performance down the stretch. So. Hey, that's all right. You know, the Celtics, in the final five minutes, they were outscored 12 to 8. They turned it over three times. They allowed three offensive rebounds. Celtics shot 2 of 10 in the last five minutes. Blazers were 5 of 9. So not the best clutch execution, but they had enough of a pad where it didn't really matter much. So Derek was pretty good in like 75% of the game. But nine turnovers, buddy, we can laugh about it now because. And it also. He. Nine turnovers is Crazy like he's not gonna have nine turnovers. Again, I say as I jinx him. I don't believe in jinxes, by the way. Other guys. Hugo Gonzalez had, you know, played 14 minutes, was a positive 14 minutes. He was plus 19 in 14 minutes. He's just a plus minus monster. Hugo Gonzalez, couple of nice plays, getting in there, digging, you know, out a loose ball and kicking it out to. I think it was Hauser for three. Just Ugo comes in and makes plays, makes things happen. Anthony Simons, decent 12 points, 5 of 12 shooting was okay. He was okay. Couple of good defensive plays, had a couple of steals. So good defensive plays from him. Good defensive plays from Sam Houser who had a couple of steals, 11 points, didn't shoot well over all 4 of 12, but 3 of 7 from 3 had seven rebounds. So nice contribution from him. Neemi was, you know, okay, but again, you know, he did have six assists. He, I think still under the weather. One little interesting wrinkle with, with Keda. I think the, I think opponents are starting to kind of figure out obviously they've. The scouting report is out the, the beginning of the season. One of the big things was, wow, look at how the Celtics are disguising all of these plays. In fact, I did a podcast that highlighted all of the, the, the offense just disguising and, and all that stuff. And so I think that the scattering report is out and teams know that the Celtics are doing things like trying to hide things. Like if you see this, they're not really doing this. It's generally a fake out. Which side note, I'm starting to think that this is one long setup for the Celtics to stop disguising things altogether in the playoffs. So when teams are expecting the Celtics to run something and oh, this is a fake, this is a diversion. Celtics are just going to run whatever it was that they looked like they were going to do. And teams are expecting the zig and the Celtics are going to zag. Just something to watch for. But the, the play that I'm thinking of with, with Keita is he normally they run a play where he kind of like fakes a handoff to Derek White and then he finds a shooter above the break. Then he, they, they ran that and then he faked the second time and then found like there was a third shooter coming up that he found and that was first. I think the. Sam Houser is the one who finished that play. That's. I think the Celtics are starting to throw some of these little extra kind of wrinkles in there. And Kate has. Kate has done a good job with that kind of stuff. So overall, like, yeah, four points, six rebound. I mean, four rebounds, six assists. Nice. A block shot. Okay, that's good. But I think. I think, first of all, like I said, I think he's sick and dealing with that. And secondly, I think they're trying some new things, so hopefully these guys, these centers get healthy sometime soon, so. Okay, Celtics now continue. Who's. Who's up next? I haven't even looked at. The schedule is just relentless. It's. Atlanta is next. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's reunion week. Oh, I didn't even talk about Drew and Rob. I got into all of these things. Shout out to Drew Holiday, Rob Williams. It's good to see Rob. He hasn't really talked to us much. He talked a little bit after the game. It's good to see him. It's good to see Holiday. Celtics put a really nice tribute together for. For Drew. That. That one of the better, I think, video tributes. I thought it was a good length. It gave a little extra. It really captured his. The essence of his time in Boston. Good stuff on the floor, Great stuff off the floor. Drew's just a solid person, a solid player. Really. Like, it's not a surprise that he went to Portland and they're playing fairly well. I know Denny Obvia is like the. The big on court guy, but I think Holiday has been, I'm sure, a huge positive impact like he was in Boston. Everybody talks so glowingly about him. Joe Missoula said, I love him to death. Like, Prichard was, you know, like, gushing, saying, he's one of the best teammates I've ever had kind of thing. So I thought it was nice. It was nice to see. And it's nice to see that he's still playing well and he still has, like, something. Something to give. Something to give the game. I'm. I'm not sure what Portland's gonna do with him. There's certainly a trade that can be made. Some. Some team out there can use Drew Holiday, Rob. He made some nice plays. There are a couple of plays. You're like, oh, yeah, Rob. Rob can still get. Get up there. He can still do what he does. Couple of block shots. You can see the Celtics really didn't want to shoot when he was around, so I don't know what his future is going to be, but I hope he stays healthy, man. I hope he stays healthy because. And again, good dude, good player. Really good player. Injuries, injuries, robbed him of like really, really good play. So good to see them back. All right, Porzingis will not play on Wednesday, but I think he's going to be in town. Maybe we'll hear from Kristaps brazing us on Wednesday. So podcast all week long. Friday night game against Sacramento, which means bonus podcast there as well. So it's been a ton of podcasts. I have not gotten many days off from the podcast, but I don't care because I'm doing this for you. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've had some fun with me today. So thank you, thank you, thank you for joining the show, being in every day or joining me every day Monday through Friday, joining me on these bonus podcasts. Now. I would love it if you shared the podcast and told everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team Every day Tax season.
D
Doesn'T have to take over your life this year. Turbo Tax is making it easier than ever to just hand things off and move on with your day. With TurboTax Full Service, you can have your taxes done for you by a trusted local expert, start to finish without the stress or guesswork. They handle everything from W2s to self employed forms and work to get you every deduction. For a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local Turbo Tax expert for just $150 all in. If a Turbo Tax expert didn't fil for you last year, just file by February 28, take taxes off your plate and get back to your life. Visit turbotax.com local to book your appointment today.
B
New Year Same extra value meals at McDonald's now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5 for a limited time only.
C
Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.
E
Locked on listeners asked for more and now you can get it with the Everydayer Club for just $5 a month. You'll get every episode ad free plus access to our members only discord exclusive audio from Locked On, Sports Today and other perks you won't find anywhere else. If you never miss a show, this is the next step. Join the Everydayer club today@lockedonpodcast.com everydayerclub or visit the link in the show notes. That's lockedonpodcast.com everydayerclub part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day.
Host: John Karalis (Boston Sports Journal)
Date: January 27, 2026
In this episode, John Karalis breaks down the Celtics' win over the Portland Trail Blazers at TD Garden—an outing defined by a blistering first quarter and a whole lot of sloppiness for the remaining three. Karalis details standout performances (notably Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard), the progress of rookie Amari Williams, and reactions to the returns of Drew Holiday and Robert Williams. He also provides in-depth analysis on rotations and the Celtics’ ongoing search for their ideal big-man mix.
[00:54–04:57]
"The first 12 minutes of this game was the best 12 minutes of the game... Sometimes that's enough against a Blazers team that didn't have Deni Avdija."
— John Karalis, [01:47]
[09:14–17:15]
“You tell him what you’ve done wrong...he goes, OK, I’m gonna fix all these...You see him say...here’s the force, the confidence, the energy.”
— John Karalis, [12:37]
[21:40–31:30]
“Just a nice solid night for Jaylen Brown. That's good.”
— John Karalis, [21:50]
"If you’ve ever played basketball for an extended period of time, finger injuries are the most common thing."
— John Karalis, [23:57]
“Nine turnovers, buddy...we can laugh about it now because...he's not gonna have nine turnovers again, I say as I jinx him.”
— John Karalis, [27:40]
“This wasn’t exactly Boston's best clutch performance down the stretch...but they had enough of a pad where it didn't really matter much.”
— John Karalis, [30:30]
[33:45–35:36]
"Prichard was, you know, like, gushing, saying, he's one of the best teammates I've ever had kind of thing. So I thought it was nice.”
— John Karalis, [34:34]
"I hope he stays healthy, man. I hope he stays healthy because...injuries robbed him of really, really good play."
— John Karalis, [35:24]
On the ugly, foul-filled game:
“This wasn’t the most thrilling win in the world...cold and sloppy outside, cold and sloppy inside. They did a nice impression of the weather.”
— John Karalis, [05:00]
Discussing development vs. short-term needs:
“If I don't think [Garza’s] a long-term part of this team and he's more of a stopgap player, then it makes more sense to have Amari in there...Amari Williams becomes the priority.”
— John Karalis, [16:43]
Karalis keeps a candid, slightly irreverent tone throughout: unvarnished about the quality of the win (“cold and sloppy...both teams sucked after the first quarter”), but informative when it comes to analysis and developmental details. Prone to tangents, but always circling back to Celtics minutiae for the engaged fan.
The Celtics’ blowout of Portland was won in the opening twelve minutes, then devolved into a slog as both teams turned the ball over and fouled at high rates. Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard keyed the offense, Amari Williams showed promising growth, and Derrick White’s night was a rollercoaster of production and mistakes. Emotional reunions with Holiday and Rob Williams punctuated the night, as did deeper talk of the Celtics’ evolving center rotation and bench development. Not a classic, but a game showcasing Boston’s depth, defensive potential, and ongoing areas for refinement as the trade deadline approaches.