SI:AM | Yet Another Huge Win for the Celtics

Plus, takeaways from the NFL combine.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I breathed a cautious sigh of relief when the New York Knicks said Jalen Brunson’s knee injury isn’t believed to be serious.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏈 NFL free agency needs

⛹️‍♀️ Another record for Caitlin Clark

👖 A deeper look at MLB’s pants controversy

If you’re reading this on SI.com, click here to subscribe to receive SI:AM in your inbox every weekday.

Yikes

Yesterday’s matchup between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors was supposed to be a compelling nationally televised showcase featuring the best team in the NBA against the most electrifying player of his generation. Instead, ABC broadcast a trainwreck.

The Celtics raced out to an 82–38 halftime lead, the largest in Boston franchise history, en route to a 140–88 victory. The game was so lopsided that Steve Kerr didn’t play his three best players (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green) at all in the second half. Boston coach Joe Mazzulla pulled his starters about five minutes into the third quarter, after they’d stretched the lead to 51 points.

Boston built such an enormous lead because of the Warriors’ questionable defensive gameplan that they implemented just minutes before tipoff. Golden State opted to intentionally leave Jaylen Brown open on the perimeter so that it could have an extra defender in the paint. Brown capitalized by scoring 19 points in the first quarter, including five threes. He finished the first half with 25 points.

“We wanted Draymond to be able to help on drives and make sure we weren’t giving up easy stuff,” Kerr explained after the game. Green said the decision to let Brown shoot was made “like 15 minutes before we left the locker room.”

Brown said he found the strategy “disrespectful.”

“It’s never personal. I’m sure that's what they thought their best chance was—whoever came up with that defensive kind of concept,” Brown said. “So it’s not personal. It was a little disrespectful to me. But it is what it is.”

Jayson Tatum also had 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting in the first half, while Stephen Curry had one of the worst games of his career (2-of-13 shooting and 0-for-9 from three), which meant the game quickly got out of hand.

It was a brutal result for the Warriors, who are ninth in the West and fighting for their playoff lives. But if it makes them feel any better, they’re far from the first team to get trounced by the Celtics like that this season.

Yesterday’s game was the third time this season that Boston has won by at least 50 points. No other team in NBA history has ever had more than two 50-point victories in a season. It was also the 11th straight win for the Celtics, who at 48–12 are now six games ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the best record in the league.

The Celtics haven’t just been winning a lot of late, they’ve been winning by wide margins. That 11-game streak includes a 131–91 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Feb. 4 and a 136–86 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Feb. 14. Boston’s average margin of victory during the streak is 22.1 points, the highest ever during a win streak of at least 10 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Celtics are separating themselves from the pack as the best team in the East and making a compelling case to be considered the best team in the entire league. They rank first in the NBA in offensive efficiency and second in defensive efficiency (only narrowly trailing the Atlanta Hawks, 120.5 to 120.4). They have an exceptionally deep roster with three players averaging at least 20 points per game (Brown, Tatum and Kristaps Porziņģis). They lead the league in rebounding and are ranked fourth in both three-point shooting and fewest turnovers. This is a team with very few holes.

Things are about to get a lot tougher for the Celtics, though. They begin a five-game road trip tomorrow that starts with games against three top teams: the Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns, in that order. If Boston emerges from that stretch still undefeated, there should be no doubt who the Finals favorite is.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK

• Matt Verderame and Gilberto Manzano identified every NFL team’s biggest needs as free agency begins next week.
• Here are Albert Breer’s biggest takeaways from the NFL combine, including what to make of the Bears’ quarterback situation.
• Stephanie Apstein wrote on Friday about what MLB players’ complaints over their new uniforms reveals about their relationship with the league.
• Apstein also spoke with Juan Soto about his reaction to being traded for a second time.
• This excerpt from former SI staffer Julie Kliegman’s new book examines the unlikely pioneer of sports psychology.
• Longtime ESPN NFL writer Chris Mortensen has died.
• Caitlin Clark surpassed Pete Maravich to become NCAA Division I’s all-time leading scorer.
• Louisiana ended the Oklahoma softball team’s NCAA-record winning streak.
• Mike Evans will avoid free agency and remain with the Buccaneers.
• Jalen Brunson gave Knicks fans a scare last night when he went down with a knee injury. Fortunately, it’s not believed to be serious.
• Dwight Howard signed to play with a team in Puerto Rico.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. The New England Revolution’s very lame new pregame tradition.

4. Nazem Kadri’s stickhandling on this magnificent solo goal.

3. Yankees minor leaguer Jeter Downs’s very Jeter-like play at shortstop.

2. The bizarre scene at a soccer game in Brazil as an injured player was dragged onto the field by a teammate in an attempt to waste time, only for the guy to be dragged back off the pitch by an opponent.

1. Marcus Rashford’s lightning-bolt goal to give Manchester United an early lead over Manchester City. (City came back to win, 3–1, though.)

SIQ

Michael Jordan played his first professional baseball game on this day in 1994 against the Texas Rangers, hitting a weak ground ball up the first base line. The pitcher he faced was at the time a 23-year-old rookie who went on to have a 20-year MLB career with nine teams. Who was it?

• Tom Gordon
• Octavio Dotel
• Ron Villone
• Darren Oliver

Friday’s SIQ: On March 1, 1996, which coach became the first in NBA history to record 1,000 career wins?

• Lenny Wilkens
• George Karl
• Phil Jackson
• Larry Brown

Answer: Lenny Wilkens. He had 1,332 wins in his career, which is now third all-time behind Don Nelson (1,335) and Gregg Popovich (1,377).

Wilkens’s 1,000th win came when he led the Atlanta Hawks to a 74–68 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Yes, you read that score correctly. That’s the kind of score you’d expect from a pretty good college game, not the NBA. And they were both decent teams! They both made the playoffs. As I wrote about last week, though, games like that are a thing of the past. The last NBA game where both teams scored 75 points or less was in 2015.