Semi Ojeleye‘s career night leads Boston past Toronto 120-106. On a Thursday night, the Celtics finally came back home after heading out west on a 5 game west coast trip and finishing it 2-3. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown didn’t have the best scoring games, but the duo combined for 19 assists. Kemba Walker has been struggling quite a bit recently, but he was 2nd on the team in scoring tonight with 21 points. It was a wild game with a bunch of back and forth action, but the Celtics prevailed to move to 13-11 on the season.
STAR OF THE GAME
The best player on the floor tonight was Semi Ojeleye. No, you did not read that wrong. After hitting only 3 3’s the entire west coast trip, he hit 6 threes tonight on 8 attempts. He scored a career high 24 points on 8-12 shooting to go along with 6 rebounds. Not only was his offense good, he played some pretty good defense on Pascal Siakam tonight. Brad Stevens switched up the lineup tonight by putting in Semi Ojeleye over Tristan Thompson and it definitely worked out for the Celtics. If Ojeleye can bring this production every night for the Celtics, watch out.
BIGGEST CONCERN
Jayson Tatum returned a couple of weeks ago after being out for 2 weeks due to the health and safety protocols. Since then, he has only had 1 game in which he shot over 50% and in the last 3 games, he is 19-54 from the field. I am a bit concerned about that, but I definitely believe this slump should end relatively soon. While that slump is a bit concerning, tonight he helped the Celtics in a completely other way. He registered 9 assists and 6 rebounds and played some pretty good defense. The shots will eventually fall down for Tatum, but until then he needs to do the little things to help this Celtics team and tonight he did just that.
SURPRISE CONTRIBUTION
Kemba Walker has been struggling quite a bit recently. Tonight however, he scored 21 points on 5-12 shooting and 5-8 from 3. Payton Pritchard, who seemingly love playing the Raptors, scored 20 off the bench on 6-10 shooting an 6-8 from 3. The most surprising contribution obviously was Semi Ojeleye. He has not taken a lot of shots recently, but he got the start tonight and set a career high.
Next Game
Vs Detroit Pistons, Friday, February 12th at 5:00PM
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