The Boston Celtics become the first team to achieve 30 wins this season with a win over the New Orleans Pelicans

CNN
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The Boston Celtics became the first NBA team this season to reach 30 wins after beating the New Orleans Pelicans 125-114 at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday night, largely behind a combined 72 points. of the team’s stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. .

Brown scored a season-high 41 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Tatum had 31 points and 10 rebounds as the Celtics won their fourth straight game.

Brown specifically attacked the Pelicans from midrange, crediting the extra muscle added in the offseason allowed him to handle contact with bigger opponents, while making a concerted effort not to settle for downs from deep.

“I think I can get to the rim at a good rate this year,” Brown told reporters afterward, according to the Celtics’ website. “I definitely want to continue like this.

“I don’t want to let the defense get away, but I feel good on a lot of the shots I took from 3s. Some of them went down, some didn’t. But I definitely still think I’m going to look to get to the basket a lot safer just for the rest of the year.”

Celtics forward Al Horford reiterated the point: “When (Brown) drives, I feel like people feel it.

“When he hits you when he’s driving, that’s real. So it’s good to see him play at that level and have the decision to attack the paint.”

It was Brown’s sixth career 40-point game, passing Sam Jones and Isaiah Thomas for the sixth-most in Celtics history.

Along with Tatum, the two wingers have become the driving force behind Boston’s recent success.

The team reached the NBA Finals last season, ultimately losing to the Golden State Warriors, and is once again one of the best in the league this year.

By scoring at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in the same game, Brown and Tatum became the first Celtics players to reach that stat line since Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker in 2001.

Selected one year after another (Brown was selected with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 draft and Tatum was selected with the No. 3 pick in 2017), they have developed an understanding together about how to dissect defenses.

“They continue to grow in front of our eyes,” Horford said of the star duo after the win. “They feed off each other, and that’s what really drives our team.”