Remember me
The TD Garden crowd held its collective breath as Derrick White’s three-point shot with 9:57 remaining bounced straight into the air. The ball hovered near shot-clock height, bounced inside the rim and rolled through the net as Boston Celtics fans let out one of their loudest cheers of the night.
The basket that gave the Celtics a 21-point lead in an eventual 126-105 rout of a shorthanded Lakers squad playing without Luka Doncic and LeBron James.
Austin Reaves tried to carry the Lakers with 36 points and eight of the team’s 15 assists, but he also had four turnovers. Gabe Vincent, starting for a second consecutive night with Doncic out, had a season-high 18 points, including four three-pointers.
With Friday’s 7 p.m. local tip time, the Lakers started two games in less than 24 hours.
“A late night, not a lot of sleep, whatever it was,” said Jake LaRavia, who started in place of James and finished with six points. “But at the end of the day, our job is to come out here on the court and that starting group, me included, we’re supposed to come out with a bang, come out with some pop and kind of get the game going. And it just didn’t happen.”
Doncic did not play because he and his fiancee are expecting their second child. Coach JJ Redick said he expected the superstar guard to return “soon,” adding that Doncic could play Sunday at Philadelphia.
James, who sat out on the second night of a back-to-back because of sciatica and left-foot joint arthritis, also could return to help the Lakers (16-6) finish their three-game Eastern Conference trip.
Although the Lakers have surged into third in the Western Conference, their six losses have been largely uncompetitive. Players looked lifeless in Atlanta, were simply outmatched against Oklahoma City and overwhelmed by Phoenix. The losses have been by an average of 18.5 points.
With Redick preaching the importance of being a “process team” instead of one focused on results, the Lakers stayed true to their process despite scoring just 17 points in the first quarter. The Lakers outscored the Celtics by one in the final three quarters. They cut a 29-point deficit in the second quarter to 15 entering the fourth until White’s levitating three-pointer snuffed out the Lakers’ farfetched comeback attempt.
“Our fight was good,” Redick said. “There was a lot of moments when we certainly could have broken and we didn’t, and it’s a credit to our guys.”
Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 30 points, while White had 19, making five of 10 three-point attempts. Boston (14-9) had six players score in double figures and made 24 threes, shooting 53.3% from long range.
Boston has won six of its last seven games to hang tough in the Eastern Conference despite playing without injured star Jayson Tatum. The Celtics also were playing their second game in as many nights, blowing out Washington on the road Thursday. Early Friday, both teams looked exactly like they were finishing difficult back-to-backs.
Lakers center Deandre Ayton missed some of his signature midrange jump shots that he had been converting at a career-high clip. Boston center Neemias Queta had a short hook shot roll all the way around the rim and trickle out.
Lakers star LeBron James watches from the sideline during a 126-105 loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday.
(Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)
But the Celtics stabilized quickly behind Brown and White, who each had nine points in the first quarter, while no Laker made more than one shot. The Lakers trailed by 22 points after a quarter and 23 by the time Redick emptied his bench with 6:38 remaining in the game.
With much of the drama sapped from the game early, Celtics fans barely mustered a traditional “Beat L.A.” chant in the fourth quarter. Instead, the loudest chant came in support of a Laker.
With two minutes remaining in the third quarter, with the Celtics leading by 22, the arena came alive with chants of “We want Bron-ny!”
Bronny James had five points in seven minutes of mop-up duty.
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