Down three starters, Celtics breeze to road win over Trail Blazers

The depth of the Boston Celtics’ roster was on full display Sunday in Portland.

Even with Jaylen Brown nursing a bone bruise in his knee and fellow starters Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday both sitting out on the first night of a back-to-back, Boston convincingly defeated the Trail Blazers, rolling to a 129-116 win at the Moda Center.

All nine Celtics who played in the game scored at least four points, and six hit double figures, with Jayson Tatum leading the way with 30 points, nine rebounds, nine assists, one steal and one block.

Sam Hauser added 24 points while shooting 8 for 10 from 3-point range. Derrick White went 4 for 10 from 3 and tallied 17 points, eight assists, three rebounds, two steals and one block.

It was the fifth straight win for the Celtics, whose six-game Western Conference road trip continues Monday night in Sacramento. Boston improved to 52-19 and an NBA-best 28-7 in road games.

“I thought we were able to execute really well offensively versus different coverages,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters. “I thought we were able to withstand some runs that they went on, and they tested everything that we need to get better at. So I thought it was a good game by our guys.”

Payton Pritchard, who torched his hometown Blazers for 43 points on March 5, made his first start of the season. But the West Linn, Ore., native wound up logging fewer minutes than he typically plays off the bench. Pritchard drilled a 3-pointer on his first touch but was whistled for three fouls in the opening five minutes, prompting Mazzulla to sit him down and up the workloads of Baylor Scheierman and JD Davison.

The vast majority of Davison’s playing time has come in Portland, Maine, where he’s set a slew of franchise records as the leader of Boston’s G League affiliate. Before Sunday, the undersized guard had logged just 42 NBA minutes this season, with all but four of those coming in garbage time. But with Boston’s backcourt options limited, Davison played eight first-half minutes against the Blazers, tallying four points, one rebound, one assist, one steal and one turnover.

Scheierman (six points, five rebounds, three assists, one block in 26 minutes) continued to look far more comfortable with the speed of the NBA game than he did for the first half of his rookie season, though he was the only Celtic to finish with a negative plus/minus (minus-1).

Torrey Craig, who’s been an energizer in limited minutes since signing with Boston last month, also saw early action. He grabbed two tough offensive rebounds in his first two minutes of floor time. Both led to second-chance 3s by fellow deep reserves – one by Scheierman and one by Davison.

The Celtics played nearly half of the first quarter with a lineup of Tatum, Craig, Scheierman, Davison and Luke Kornet – a preseason-esque quintet that had never shared the floor together – yet still led 34-24 at the end of one.

That lead didn’t hold, however. Portland ripped off a 12-0 run with Tatum on the bench and tied the game on a 3-pointer by ex-Celtic Dalano Banton. Al Horford (14 points, six rebounds) halted the Blazers’ rally with back-to-back buckets, followed by a steal and fast-break dunk by White. Those plays shifted momentum back toward Boston, and the Celtics outscored their hosts 21-8 over the final five-plus minutes of the first half.

Included in that flurry were the fourth and fifth made threes from Hauser, who went 5 for 6 from downtown in the first half. The Celtics sharpshooter has battled injuries and inconsistency this season, but his 3-point shot has been dialed in of late. Hauser is shooting 50% from beyond the arc (28-for-58) over his last seven games.

Boston led 64-51 at halftime. Tatum scored just six of those points, but the Celtics dominated when their superstar was in the game, owning a plus-21 scoring differential in Tatum’s 17 first-half minutes. When he sat, they were a minus-8.

Tatum then exploded as a scorer in the third quarter, pouring in 18 points on 11 field-goal attempts, including a highlight-reel, and-one 3-pointer over 7-foot-2 rookie Donovan Clingan. Pritchard, who sat the first six minutes of the second half in favor of Scheierman, also asserted himself, hitting three triples in a 95-second span.

“Ultimately, my first start this year didn’t go how I wanted,” Pritchard, who finished with 16 points, five assists and four rebounds, told NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin. “I got three fouls in, like, three minutes. Maybe I’ll just stick to coming off the bench. I’d say that’s much more fitting for me right now. … You’ve just got to play basketball, though. It’s unfortunate you get those three early fouls, but sometimes that happens in a game. You don’t want to try to play a different way; you want to continue to play the same way. I’m just glad we got the W in my hometown, and it feels really good.”

The third was not a strong quarter for the Celtics defensively, as Portland scored 39 points and cut Boston’s lead to seven at one point. But their offense simply overwhelmed a Blazers squad that came in ranked fourth in the NBA in defensive rating since the start of 2025. The Celtics’ 54.4% field-goal percentage was their best mark of the season, and they made 46% of their 3-pointers (23 of 50).

Kornet scored seven points early in the fourth quarter – part of a 13-point, 6-for-6 showing from the backup big man – to help Boston put the game away. The final two of those came on a lefty putback dunk, which Kornet celebrated by barking as he jogged down the court.

“I thought Luke was great in his minutes,” Mazzulla told reporters. “I thought Torrey contributed a lot. I thought Baylor was good. JD hit a shot and got a couple of deflections. So everybody that played impacted winning, and that’s the most important thing — sticking to the things that impact winning every night and continuing to work to keep our edge.”

A storyline to watch entering Monday’s matchup with the Kings will be Brown’s availability. The Celtics said the four-time All-Star, who missed the last three games, would be reevaluated Monday. Brown must play in at least nine of Boston’s final 11 games to qualify for All-NBA and All-Defensive consideration.

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